APOCALYPSE WHENEVER (CLEAR PINK VINYL)

Bad Suns sound - dreamy '80s pastiche flanked by Stratocasters through
cranked Vox amps, pulsing synths, and palpable rhythmic energy - that endeared
listeners to the band in the first place, and their fourth LP, Apocalypse Whenever,
uses that musical foundation as the jumping-off point for their next evolution.
Conceived as "the soundtrack to a movie that doesn't yet exist," the 13-track
album, helmed by longtime producer Eric Palmquist (MUTEMATH, Thrice) at his
Palmquist Studios and the band's North Hollywood rehearsal spot, is more conceptually rigorous than anything they've ever attempted - but no less compelling
or accessible. "We also knew we wanted the album to have a through-line, a story
from beginning to end," frontman Christo Bowman explains, so the band did what
any good directors would: They assembled a mood board, filtering their neo-noir
version of Los Angeles through the dreamlike haziness of author Haruki Murakami,
the futuristic flair of Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Blade Runner, and the lifted
cinematography of Spike Jonze's HER.
These disparate influences don't just offer Apocalypse Whenever an expanded
palette of sonic choices to color Bad Suns's airtight hooks - they help give the
songs an emotional complexity that works on a multitude of levels depending on
how listeners choose to receive them.