stillhungry’s Warmly Melancholic “Sunco” is Makes Taking Accountability For Your Failures Seem Survivable

stillhungry1_sm — stillhungry, photo courtesy the artists

“Sunco,” the lead single from the new, self-titled album by Asbury, NJ-based band stillhungry takes a simple but intricate melody as the backdrop to finely complimentary vocal harmonies that sound like the affectionate but weary letter to a friend or a rehearsal for a serious conversation about life and where it’s going because some conversations are more difficult than others to have when maybe you need to take a different approach than you normally would. The gorgeously composed guitar work and the expertly cast keyboard atmospheres and seemingly steady but subtly dynamic pace is reminiscent of Low in the twenty-first century as is the countrified flavor of certain aspects of the songwriting but that all serves to give the song a crucial earnestness and warmth of tone for its lyrics to work. Everyone has had plans for life that didn’t work out or crashed nearly catastrophically and certainly friends and relatives who have had that experience. Because the seduction of those plans maybe made you ignore some of the warning signs of where it could go wrong. In the line, “Technicolor makes you wonder why it hurts so bad, thought you saw it coming but it was only a dream you had,” stillhungry acknowledges that way we will justify so much in the name of what we want or think we want. And in the aftermath of our world crashing down it’s so tempting to wallow in bitter misery and to reject the world, which the band articulates so well in singing, “You care so much about not caring at all/I know you’ve been slumping wearing dirty rags and sittin’ still/ Promised your mother you wouldn’t break it but you will.” But it isn’t a song about making judgments so much as it is about accountability and a gentle reminder that one needn’t cling to dreams and ideas that aren’t working by punishing yourself by holding the failure so close and doing little to nothing to move on. We’ve all been there if we’ve done anything even semi-significant in our lives. Listen to “Sunco” on Spotify and follow stillhungry at the links below.