Label: Lucky Number
Released: 6th May 2022
This third album from Sunflower Bean is a real testament to what can happen when you roll the dice and take your chances. A record of complete freedom, both in theme and in execution, as equal parts terrifying and exciting as walking out of your front door on an adventure with no plans and no destiny. Spinning off in multiple directions, ‘Headful Of Sugar’ is as far removed at times from what was expected as it gets, the band shaking themselves loose of expectations gloriously.
It’s clear things have changed right from the start, as the soft groove of opener ‘Who Put You Up To This?’ Shifts flawlessly into the lo-fi and dreamy ‘In Flight’. Julia Cumming has rarely sounded better as she warns on the former “In another life I was a bitch, in another life I was your bitch”. There are hints of St. Vincent and Empire Of The Sun drifting through these early parts, where the band are running at the opportunity to do the least safe option. At the record’s spiritual heart lies ‘Roll The Dice’ and ‘I Don’t Have Control Sometimes’, tracks that shout the central message that your fate isn’t set – and that sometimes that fact can be something to embrace with its message of “I don’t care what tomorrow brings, today I’m totally mine”.
‘Headful Of Sugar’ is a pure thrill ride of exhilarating speed, whiplashing from open-top car rides into the clubs from one track to the next without ever settling into any form of comfort zone. A record to be cranked up loud, packed with anthems for these times of flux and risk-taking. This latest roll of the dice has beaten all the odds.
