Sun And Sail Club – Shipwrecked

by Mark 'Yeti' Richard · October 29, 2024

The Sun And Sail Club is a side project band that features Fu Manchu (review here) members Bob Balch, also in Big Scenic Nowhere (review here) and Slower (review here) on guitars, and Scott Reeder (Smile) on drums. On bass guitar is current Fireball Ministry and former Kyuss and The Obsessed four stringer, Scott Reeder. The lineup is completed with hardcore legendary vocalist Tony Adolescent, from the Adolescents. Shipwrecked is the band’s first album in over nine years. The Sun And Sail Club also released 2013’s Mannequin and 2015’s The Great White Dope. Both of those previous albums have been reissued on Heavy Psych Sounds Records earlier this year. Shipwrecked was released on October 18th 2024 and is also on Heavy Psych Sounds Records.

Shipwrecked both starts and ends with some nice soft and smooth jazz guitar music, in the opener “Just Friends” and the closer “Days Of Wine And Roses”. However, the nine tracks between the intro and outro are telling of what the Sun And Sail Club are all about and set out to do. The band demonstrate and accomplish ripping our faces off. The bass and drum roll start of “Halcyon” sets the pace of the songs contained on Shipwrecked. No nonsense and hardcore driven songs that are short and to the point. “Torture Garden” begins with guitar and is enhanced by accents before the music roars ahead. Tony Adolescent provides his shouting style vocals which is the perfect complement to the music. “Tumble” has a metallic sound to begin the song with as the riffing is such. However, the song still blazes ahead with a punk fueled intensity. The cool thing about the Sun And Sail Club is the musical talent among each of the musicians involved. The band play straight forward songs with a direct hardcore/ crossover approach but they incorporate a hard rock structure also. Songs like “Vector”, “Bird Strike”, and “The Color Of War” are all fast paced in execution but also have a rock sensibility to them. Whether laying down a guitar lead in “Bird Strike” or just the flowing aggression of the songs, one thing is for sure, the band play these songs super tight and the recording sounds great also.

Some of the songs bring me back to the eighties style crossover music that old Corrosion Of Conformity did, like the song “Drag The River”. The band keeps all the songs between 1-3 minutes in length on Shipwrecked which makes the album a quick listen, clocking in at only 23 minutes total. True to the spirit of hardcore and punk rock music, nothing is drawn out or overplayed, just to the point with direct impact. “District 19” and “Tastes Like Blood“ are the final two songs, not counting the outro, on Shipwrecked. Both are great tunes that solidifies the scope of what the Sun And Sail Club has set forth to achieve.

Overall, the Sun And Sail Club is a really good band that brings me back to my hardcore music roots. The songs on Shipwrecked are done very well and sound awesome! I applaud Heavy Psych Sounds for releasing the diversity of music that they do. The label doesn’t just release heavy psychedelic rock, they delve into metal, thrash, and now hardcore and punk too.