Maui Tears

Psychedelic rock band Sleepy Sun now has a new and fourth album out called Maui Tears. Sleepy Sun hails from San Francisco, CA and comprises of the vocalist Bret Constantino, guitarists Matt Holliman and Evan Reiss, the bassist Jack Allen, and the drummer Brian Tice. On this 9 track album you will get music that has some trance like melodies, songs that change enough of their sounds to be different, and vocals that have a familiar sound to them. Listening to Maui Tears is almost like being an trance like state where you hear the music, you know it's playing, but you're still doing your own thing while it's playing.

My first impression with this band is with this album so I have no real background knowledge to go off of. Is this band doing better now that they are on their fourth album compare to their first? Maybe, I would say that with the talent that these guys have on this fourth album I would think that they have been playing well from the start. Sleepy Sun does what I like in this style of music, it keeps you listening without taking you away from whatever you are doing. However, if you do want to get lost in the moment of the track that's playing, you could easily do so. What I noticed right from the start of listening to this album was the vocals of Bret Constantino. I said there is a familiar sound to them, and for me that familiar sound was how the vocals reminded me of Perry Farrell. Bret Constantino has a higher pitched voice but it works very well with the bands style of music. His voice, though a bit high, is strong and he has a good timing sense of when to hold chords or to be quick with them.

Maui Tears is a good album, it has good songs on it, and I did enjoy listening to it. However, I have to also let it be known that while listening to this album I could easily get distracted from it. Sure it's good, the songs are well played, they achieve what I imagine by having their music have a space like sound to it but it's also because of this that the music can become lost in the background. That's not a bad thing, not a great thing either, but if I were at a party or a friend came over I would no longer hear the music, it would just blend into the environment. On the other hand though, when alone, when I all I want to do is listen to some music, this would be a good album to have playing. The melodies are smooth, the changes in tempos happen where it almost sounds like they didn't, and the lyrics are written well. Maui Tears is a good album, not one to knock me off my feet but one that will have me wanting to relax and get off my feet.