Review: Twentytwo in Blue by Sunflower Bean

Sunflower Bean seem to like taking things slow, whether it’s because they’re just young and not really rushing to take over the world (although arguably they’re closer to that than most of us) or because they’re supposed to be, you know, cool kids from New York. Twentytwo in Blue, their latest record, pushes the narrative (and the hyphen, outwards) further: in contrast to their debut full-length Human Ceremony, here they dig through the rock and roll canon, channeling their inner Fleetwood Mac (even more evident on “I Was A Fool”) without, for now at least, the strife that defined it. It sounds warmer and older, but at the same time, it sounds just like what they used to before, only, well, more vintage. So not much of a push to the narrative, then. But then this isn’t the album that’s going to make them superstars: they seem to be content just making music, taking their time. At least this time they’ve somewhat ditched the glossy kind of cool and embraced the gritty sort that tends to be more evergreen. But we’ll see in a few years. [NB] | 3/5