The sound of United Waters is rock and roll submerged. The New York trio’s music is H20-logged and woozily off-speed, as if they’ve been playing in the deep end so long their notes and beats have contracted a case of the bends. The resulting effect is simultaneously close and distant. Some individual elements, like the looping guitar riffs and the machinistic drum beats, feel close enough to touch.
Yet every inch of Sunburner is muffled and drenched as if it’s wearing a sweater in 100-degree weather; at times, it resembles a Joy Division record played under a stack of mattresses.
That sounds like a formula for a downer slog of an album, but sealing United Waters’ songs in a claustrophobic envelope makes them more engaging.
