Sunbloc - Joyride Cassette

Do you remember a time when alternative music was more than just rote recitation and recycled ideas? SUNBLOC does. The Albany, NY quintet has spent the last five years carving their own niche in an increasingly crowded landscape, defying convention from the word go. While tired thinkpieces about “breaking down the boundaries of hardcore” abound, many of the bands cited are doing little to push the form forward and much to stay relevant in the shrinkingly narrow lane of commercially-viable guitar music. But SUNBLOC has a vision that extends beyond market speculation disguised as music journalism. On their new EP, Joyride, that vision is clearer than ever.

Coming out as a 7” on Immigrant Sun Records and a cassette via New Enterprise (a new label run by Chris Villeneuve and Cory Galusha of genre-leaders Drug Church) and recorded with Chris Teti at Silver Bullet Studios, Joyride continues to expand the scope of SUNBLOC’s patented post-everything approach. The straightforward hardcore of 2024’s Enemies At All Times remains, but this time the equilibrium aspired to on 2023’s Sunday Music is refined and perfected. On tracks like “Crashing”, the band transitions effortlessly between stomping verses that evoke 2000s Boston hardcore and breezy choruses that would be at home on a breakthrough college rock hit of yesteryear without sacrificing the integrity of either element. So is Joyride a post-hardcore record? Maybe in the strictest sense, but even with ample nods to 90s greats like Farside, SUNBLOC’s affinity for Britpop, shoegaze and the rest of the UK rock diaspora bleeds through at every corner, resulting in a sonic marriage that might be truly novel. More than anything, Joyride is a rock record and SUNBLOC is a rock band, replete with all the energy and charisma that description once implied.

If you’ve ever felt like the guitarist of your favorite “hardcore adjacent” band may not have picked out that vintage Sundays shirt himself, SUNBLOC is the answer to your prayers. They have the bona fides, but much more importantly, they have the tracks to back them up. In a space where “innovation” is so frequently synonymous with “marketability”, SUNBLOC manages to actually achieve the former without tactlessly reaching for the latter. They’re plenty content to let the music speak for itself.