GZR-025 || Sunlotus - 'Fever' Cassette

Originally released back in July 2023 through Disaster Records and Greedy Dust, Sunlotus’ smoldering EP, Fever, breathes new life again on digital and cassette through Gezellig Records. 

This post-rock-informed take on shoegaze from the heart of Indonesia thunders and roars like a mutated conglomeration of MONO and My Bloody Valentine. With tectonic drones, simmering distortion and glacial chugging rhythms, you’ll be hard pressed to find a more pulverizing and elemental rock sound than this. 

The band is the dream project of leader/guitarist/singer Made Dharma, and was created to satisfy his need for intense volume that was lacking in the local noise and hardcore scenes. With DF Ahmad alongside him on guitar, and Wiwit Nugroho on drums, the band plays a roaring and persistent wall of guitars that rattles your bones and turns the air into a thick jelly. Yet, Sunlotus’ most impressive feat thus far is that they made this monstrous in-the-red volume and distortion not only extremely accessible, but also deeply moving, too.

From cascading grand epics like “Glass-like Dreams,” to their raw, relentlessly emotional interpretation of The Smiths’ “Last Night I Dreamt that Somebody Loved Me,” the band channels everything from existential ennui, to the catharsis of pent up pandemic trauma and even the oppressive heat of their home in Java into something stunning and hopeful. Sympathetic melodies and soulful vocals drenched in thick reverb abound on this release, and they tug tightly at your heart while cyclones of overdriven guitars howl in the background. This powerful EP is unquestionably heavy in both sound and content.

Fever is a record for our shaken times. Fans of Spiritualized, Explosions in the Sky and Azusa Plane need to know this music and know it well. 

-- Keith Hadid, Record Crates United