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Human Ceremony January 29 2016

Being a teenager is all about testing out different personalities to figure out who you really are. This kind of personality development, for better or worse, defines Sunflower Beanâs full-length debut,Â Human Ceremony.


"Wall Watcher" â Sunflower BeanViaÂ SoundCloud
"Easier Said" â Sunflower BeanViaÂ SoundCloud

Being a teenager is all about testing out different personalities to figure out who you really are. This kind of development is all over Sunflower Beanâs full-length debut, Human Ceremony. It's most evident in the frenetic variety of the album, as the Brooklyn trioâsinger/bassist Julia Cumming, singer/guitarist Nick Kivlen, and drummer Jacob Faber, all in their teens when they recorded itâtry on genres throughout 11 tracks.

There are bits of psych, moments of metal, and lots of guitar sounds from an era when major labels threw lots of money at alternative rock. The Cure, Lush, Sonic Youth, and even the Sundays are somewhere in their record collection. And you can practically hear the practice space discussion of the band composing the songs: "Okay, we'll do the Pumpkins part eight times and then go into the Sabbath part."

But even if they're doing things that have been done before, it sounds like they're discovering these things for the first time, and that excitement is palpable on Human Ceremony. Sure, the excitement occasionally results in childlike naivetÃ©, but that's also part of the fun. A seasoned songwriter would probably be too self-conscious to title a song "Space Exploration Disaster," and if Sunflower Bean had somebody with a heavier hand advising them, we might not be treated to such a decodable album cover. (Is that a Frida Kahlo button near the DalÃ­ melting clock? What do the 12 clocks even mean? Kivlen's look is totally Bringing It All Back Home Dylan!)

The bandâs diverse influences sound best when Kivlen's voice serves as a darker echo of Cummingâs angelic optimism, especially in a call and response. But the band's hodgepodge approach doesn't always work. Kivlen occasionally feels out of place adding a second vocal to some of the songs, especially when he's delivering clunky quasi-mystical lyrics like "in your right hand is the magic potion/ You can drink the elixir now/ Don't forget the notion" on the title track.Â The band especially fall flat when they try to do both dreamy and nightmarish within the same song. It just sounds silly when after a few minutes of prettiness during "Creation Myth" they delve into one of those aforementioned Sabbath bits. Sunflower Bean rock out and they can also be trusted to handle more fragile material, but it's best to keep these traits separate from song to song. The band may find their identity by mixing these contrasting elements, which, it must be said, is the reason that being a teenager is so interesting. It's the time in your life when mixing it up like this can actually work.
