The Sun Explodes: We Build Mountains

Cambrian tech-heads blaze a multi-hued trail to the moshpit

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Amidst the now-commonplace merging and cross-pollination of genres it’s becoming harder for bands to sound innovative. So when you find a band like The Sun Explodes, who manage to meld progressive song structures into a punk rock style with such relative ease, it really is something to cherish.

This short, seven-track mini-album is crammed full of ambitious ideas without ever forgetting to serve the purpose of the music. Every track hits the spot on both your chin-stroking brain and your alcohol-fuelled, moshpit-loony side. If you can imagine Boysetsfire lending their fist-pumping anthems to Between The Buried And Me to fuck around with, then We Build Mountains could well be the result.

With such a diverse set of influences, tracks like A Thousand Fires manage to sound as much like Opeth as it does Biffy Clyro and SevenThreeOne could be Dillinger butting heads with Sigur Rós. As maddening as it may sound on paper, this is a brilliant cocktail of noise.

Stephen Hill

Since blagging his way onto the Hammer team a decade ago, Stephen has written countless features and reviews for the magazine, usually specialising in punk, hardcore and 90s metal, and still holds out the faint hope of one day getting his beloved U2 into the pages of the mag. He also regularly spouts his opinions on the Metal Hammer Podcast.