While it’s impossible to peg one specific component of the new album Signs & Wonders from Sun King Rising as being the most intriguing of the lot, SKR’s voice is frequently the catalyst for catharsis most listeners are certain to hear in their dreams following a virginal sit down with this LP. In songs like “Lanterns on the Levee,” intimacy is treated as much more than a rare commodity to be utilized quite sparingly; it’s the heart and soul of every verse here, and more than that, it’s the perfect channel through which SKR can share his most personal thoughts. If you were hoping for something unstoppably mindful in this record, I can promise you now that Signs & Wonders is going to make your autumn season.
The videos for “One More Story to Tell,” “Buried in the Blues” and “No. 6 Magnolia Avenue” are very simple, but I think they have to be to do the essence of their source material justice. Compositions like these, and even deep cuts like the moving “No. 6 Magnolia Avenue,” demand a lot of attention and focus from the audience, and rather than overwhelming us with a lot of stimulating visual elements here, I think SKR made the right move in sticking with something more minimalistic than what some of his peers might have gone with. There’s nothing negative in using excess when it works, but in this scenario, the meat and potatoes of his artistry are all we need to understand the value of his emotion in these tracks.
From the second we first hear the opening bars of “Bitter Waters Sweetened” onward, fearless use of texture becomes just as common a feature as SKR’s breathtaking lead vocal is in this effort, with “Low Wine and Cruel Ruin,” “Alabama Nocturne” and “Jubal Takes a Wife” being some of the best songs to exemplify the multidimensionality required in presenting this attribute to us properly. There are plenty of amateurs who would just as soon brand themselves ‘indie’ and attempt to make something as stacked and sophisticatedly unique as this album is, but for every two hundred duds that will come out between now and the end of 2022, there will stand only one real stud in Signs & Wonders. You don’t have to be a hardcore audiophile to know this, but those of us who are will probably agree that this is one of the more opulent underground releases of the year.
Those who are just now getting familiar with the music of Sun King Rising couldn’t have picked a better time to be doing so, and fans of his previously released content will likely be the first to tell you the same this October. Released just this month, Signs & Wonders pummels us with erudite notions that most artists in SKR’s position just aren’t ready to tackle without a proper collaborator in the studio beside them. This is all muscle and no fat, with featured guests contributing to a story penned by one person alone, and to me, that person is one of the more important artists you can follow at the moment.
Claire Uebelacker