Review Summary: A decent album but lacks much of it's own, unique identity to make an impact.
Every band has their own influences. They take sounds from other groups and use them as a groundwork to build upon with their own unique ideas, or at least, this is what bands should be doing. Sunflo'er's third album,
All These Darlings and Now Me, borrows heavily from Every Time I Die. Pretty much everything, from vocals to song structure and guitar riffs, sounds like it was stripped right out of an Every Time I Die record. Sometimes they do this style justice with the energetic opener,
Straight to VHS. The track contains a standout guitar performance as the southern-tinged riffs and solos hit hard with an exciting intensity. However, every other song with this approach feels uninspired as it follows well-known formulas that other bands, such as Every Time I Die, have already established and have done much better with a lot more authenticity along with it. Despite this, these tracks are not downright awful and they do hold a couple of good qualities.
Brand New Everything starts with an absolutely stellar drum intro.
7 Trumpets In Astoria has a number of good riffs, as does
Big City Shotgun, which uses panic chords tastefully throughout its runtime.
Sunflo’er do hold a few tricks up their sleeves, as a couple of tracks on the album show off some of their previously hidden abilities.
Here End the Roads and the Days is a concise instrumental track where the reverb filled lead guitar takes front and centre stage with it’s amazing melodies. The drums perfectly accent the melody while also proving their talents with some smooth and satisfying drum fills. The title and closing track,
All These Darlings and Now Me, ends the record with an enchanting finale. It starts off with the band's familiar sound of decent riffs and other metalcore staples, but it then crescendos with an emotional pay-off filled with catchy clean vocals and an unquestionably outstanding guitar melody. These two tracks hugely elevate the album as they demonstrate that they are fully capable of building upon the already established groundwork to produce music that sounds original and fresh. However, only two of the nine tracks here feel like they have come entirely into their own. As a whole, the album still feels lacking in new ideas.
All These Darlings and Now Me is a decent album that takes a lot of ideas from other bands, adding very little to make it their own. This makes a good chunk of the album forgettable, despite the solid performances. The highlights here are really strong though, as they show a lot of promise for the band if they decide to continue with this trajectory, which hopefully they will do.
