The Sunshine Underground current tour came to a climax when they played to over 2000 people on their home turf at Leeds University, which was sold out. I maybe bias when it comes to Sunshine Underground as I think their debut album 'Raise The Alarm’ was the best album of last year. I am glad to say that FINALLY, the band is getting the recognition that they deserve. With the release of their most hyped single 'Commercial Breakdown’ last year, shockingly, it failed to make it in to the Top 40. And even, with the easy to singalong 'Borders’ being released earlier this year, again, that failed to hit the Top 40. However, the chart position is not the end all and be all. What matters are the quality tunes, as every song on the album is pure class.
Having recently played the 'NME New Rave Indie’ tour, alongside with 'The Klaxons’, 'New Young Pony Club’ and 'CSS’, 'The Sunshine Underground’ are definitely stars on the horizon. However, don’t be fooled in to thinking that 'Sunshine Underground’ sounds anything like 'The Klaxons’. The music is totally different and forget the 'New Rave’ tag. It’s just not applicable to the sound of 'The Sunshine Underground’.
The crowd went wild for 'Commercial Breakdown’, 'Put You In Your Place’, 'The Way It Is’ and 'I Ain’t Losing Any Sleep’. The band also treated their fans to some of their new material. The working titles to a couple of these tracks were 'Fall In Line’ and 'Baggy’ which is already hyped about by the hardcore fans. However, I was a bit gutted that they didn’t play 'Dead Scene’.
The band played and sounded great but I couldn’t help but think that something was missing. I didn’t know what it was then and still don’t know what it was now. Maybe I was expecting too much from the band, so much so that I was bound to be disappointed.
Definitely expect to hear more about Sunshine Underground in the coming year. What makes them different to other bands of today, is that they have their own individual, unique sound and that no other band sounds remotely like them.
