Sunset Lines – “Home Anywhere”

Self Released – 14 May 2021

FFO: Fun synth pop stuff

Since the release of Slippery Slope by Sunset Lines, the band took a two year hiatus to hone their craft. Home Anywhere is a great case study in how effective taking extra time to focus on a small amount of material can have a huge payoff. On the surface Home Anywhere is a synth pop record that pays a lot of tribute to synthesizer music of the 80’s (okay maybe there’s a little too much of that, but it can be forgiven because the music is really fun), but the songs have a huge amount of depth that reward listeners more and more on repeat listens.

“Unresponsive” is the lowest point on the record, which is good news because it can only get better from there. The song’s not bad at all, but can feel a little meandering, and I have to wonder why it ended up at the beginning of the record when so many other moments are so upbeat and pointed. “Unresponsive” feels like a mid-record tune.

But it doesn’t matter too much because “Phototaxis” and “Smoke Signals” are great. The vocal hooks are fantastic. The production is really smart. There’s enough weirdness hiding in these songs to keep anything from being boring, but nothing is overbearing in its presence. These are songs that balance pop and experimentalism really well.

“Read The Whole Room” is a good showcase for singer Liz Brooks. There are no drums whatsoever. It’s a great opportunity to show off some of the weirder synth tones that Sunset Lines is capable off, and there are some extra bursts of static and distortion that almost border on industrial. This transitions into “Season Of The Witch” perfectly – I wonder if they were written as companion songs. I only wish that “Season Of The Witch” had a bigger landing at the end. The first half of Home Anywhere has such a great energy, but it gets a little lost in the second half. “Easy To Offend” reclaims some of that power but not to the same extent. This might be a question of sequencing, but it also might be that my ears tend to get bored rather quickly, and when there’s so much ambience (well produced ambience! these are GOOD songs) I start to feel restless. I want more of the fun energetic songs please. Or a combination of the two?

To sum up, I really like this EP. It wears its influences on its sleeve in a way that’s endearing, rather than regressive. It pays perhaps a little too much homage to music of a very specific period, but there’s also enough strange effects filtered through these songs that that tribute can absolutely be forgiven. My biggest critique of the record is that it has such a strong start that dies out fairly quickly. I have to wonder if Sunset Lines view themselves as a pop band that can do more ambient tracks, or vice versa, because Home Anywhere doesn’t always make that intention quite clear.