About
Rock ‘n’ roll, if it serves one direct purpose, is to articulate life lived to the fullest – be it messy, beautiful, or a complete disaster. For more than half a century, rock ‘n’ roll musicians have been able to show us the contours of lived human experiences, scrambling to make sense of it all through screaming guitar riffs and rhythmic drum beats, hypnotic as they are soothing.
This is what Sun K try to do on their thunderous sophomore record, Bleeding Hearts, which contains the whole spectrum of emotion in its 12 songs. Sun K’s sound blends the strident particulars of rock music with the gentle and sharp purview of folk in surprising places, with lead singer Kristian Montano sounding like a long-lost Beatle tucked away in the edges of music history.
The running theme of Bleeding Hearts is celebrating these oft-felt mythic dramas that occur while you’re young and foolish. Montano says he’d look back on these songs and believe them to be epic stories, but inevitably they were simple things he and the group had endured together. Like the ending chapter of a book, the album’s last song, “Forever,” is an important farewell to a tumultuous emotional ride. “It’s more of gateway to a new part of your life that hopefully brings a little bit more emotional stability in terms of confidence in your past, and just belief in what you’re doing and the people around you,” says Montano.
And besides, he adds, “it’s just like waiting for the reprise, you know?”
