With Embrace, the Santa Cruz-based retro-rock act Sleepy Sun has really worked through its influences, delivering a classic portion of new stoner/headphone rock. The band’s suitably named debut treads through the catalog of many a classic rock and folk artist’s greatest hits album, picking the best bits from Rainbow and Black Sabbath here, Mountain and Wishbone Ash there, as if these kids’ folks had good taste in 70’s classic desert rock, but not much else. It’s alluring to call the extensive, mesmerizing White Dove an “epic jam,” simply because it’s over 9 minutes long. But the song’s great male and female vocals find Bret Constantino and Rachael Williams howling like wolves of rock while hugely massive in some parts and quiet and moody in others. Besides which, it really is a great epic song, not quite up to par with the song suite from Rush’s 2112, but surpassing anything similar by Uriah Heep. The rest of the record is eclectic without ever straying far from heavy, psyched-out prog-rock with touches of contrasting folk. The album is however, teasingly too short. It’s quite apparent that this album got the magic touch of producer Colin Stewart, who made Black Mountain’s In The Future such a blazing rock record.
B+
Sleepy Sun – White Dove from ATP Recordings on Vimeo.
The Antler’s Hospice is a smart, quaint, and often transcendent little pop record. The roots of the album seem to lie in Bear, a woozy, gorgeous song that sets the up-down emotion of the record. Lyrically it’s a breezy and hypnotic piece of work that relaxes the listener. The music is an elastic and very smart update to synth-pop and the melodies are crystal clear, while the unmistakable layering of each song is spartan and pretty. Forget the tags that have been thrown up against this music—Poptronica, Slow-Core? What the hell is that anyway? The tension of this album builds and releases at incremental moments. It just might haunt you hours after listening to it—begging you to return to get it’s message heard.
A -
The Antlers – 
Bear from Hospice (2009)
Sleepy Sun and The Antlers play at the Independent in San Francisco today at 9pm with Misty Mountain. The Antlers then go on to support Minus The Bear.