Ought’s new album Sun Coming Down now available for streaming; Due for release on 18th September via Constellation
OUGHT’S NEW ALBUM SUN COMING DOWN NOW AVAILABLE FOR STREAMING;
DUE FOR RELEASE ON 18TH SEPTEMBER VIA CONSTELLATION
(photo credit: Hera Chan)
With the September 18 release of their forthcoming second LP Sun Coming Down fast approaching, Ought have now shared a full stream of their new album one week prior to release. Including the smouldering yet introspective fan-favourite “Beautiful Blue Sky” and thrilling album-opener “Men For Miles”, these are two gems in this album of many…
STREAM OUGHT’S NEW ALBUM SUN COMING DOWN
Sun Coming Down maintains the band’s tight, twitchy and economical sound, with the unfussy, understated rhythm section of drummer Tim Keen and bassist Ben Stidworthy anchoring Tim Darcy’s electric guitar and Matt May’s fuzzed-out keys (sounding, as often as not, like a second guitar). Ought pursue an artistically apposite austerity in committing these new songs to tape, referencing the arid and unvarnished production of no-wave and early indie rock while balancing carved-out angularity against an evolving comfort with textural coalescences and measured pacing. It makes for an album that’s consistently, insistently propulsive but also feels unhurried and pleasantly unhyped. Songs like ‘Beautiful Blue Sky’ (already a fan favourite from live shows) and ‘Never Better’ unfold with gradual and deliberate ebb and flow, where scratchy guitars play like dappled shards of light on gently roiling waves of bass and organ; ‘The Combo’ and ‘Celebration’ keep things crisp and concise. Darcy’s voice and lyrics continue to distinguish and define the personality of the band: his blend of ironic detachment, declarative insistence, fragmentary stammering poetics, and the occasional direct aside to the listener, finds various ways to weave within or drive through the mixes.
Sun Coming Down confirms the distinctive vitality and purposive naturalism of this band; Ought resists facile primitivism and overhyped dynamics in equal measure, keeping things hermetic but never airless, ascetic but never dispassionate, literate but never prolix. The band’s steady and subtle charms don’t make them the cool kids or the iconoclastic freaks – just a satisfyingly unrefined and substantive rock band that eschews indulgence or aesthetic bandwagoneering to seek a humble, thoughtful corner from which to articulate a position within and contribute meaningfully to a 40-year continuum of indie, punk and DIY tradition.
Track Listing:
1. Men for Miles
2. Passionate Turn
3. The Combo
4. Sun’s Coming Down
5. Beautiful Blue Sky
6. Celebration
7. On The Line
8. Never Better
“Intelligent, concise and fully in control – even when they sound in exuberant, entangled disarray.” – THE SKINNY
“Sun Coming Down fizzes with a nervous agitation that was once The Feelies’ forte…The songs with the greatest range of dynamics – like eight-minute centrepiece “Beautiful Blue Sky” – are where Ought establish their own trajectory.” – UNCUT
“What’s really striking about Ought…is the sheer timelessness of it all. Ought could have been hanging out with The Velvet Underground. Ought could have lived next door to Joy Division.Ought could be the cousins of the guys in Liars. Or Bloc Party, or Pavement or Sonic Youth. But more than “Ought could be connected to legends” – on the evidence of this one performance and a very young career Ought could just be legends.” – DIY