“The world’s on fire, and we’re not doing anything about it.”

And thus say Sundowner—although they may be grossly underestimating their power and discontent.

Formed in 2022, Sundowner’s brand of punk-and-metal-tinged noise is the soundtrack to the urban industrial slog and the degradation of relationships and human interaction. It’s the sound of a depraved society yearning for casual death threats and disturbed power trips, subversive, noisy, and confrontational, even if the band members themselves—Cole (bass, vox), Isaac(drums), and Nick (guitar)—are anything but.

Before coming together as Sundowner, the band members played in various bands across various genres. Well, Cole and Nick did (Dilettantes, Shopvac, Tourist, Brauer, Uncola); shockingly, this is Isaac’s first band. He’s only ever played in the high school band. Not A band.THE band.

Their musical and inter-band dynamics began in Toronto, in a now-defunct bar in Kensington Market called Thirsty & Miserable. Cole worked there, and Isaac could be found sitting at the bar, drumming along to songs playing over the bar’s speakers. Cole approached Isaac about his inconspicuous bar room tap-alongs, and the origins of Sundowner took shape.

In a stroke of fate (at least, the punk-scene-in-a-major-city kind of fate), Nick’s friends from NewYork (oooo!) were playing a show in the East End near Greenwood station. Isaac was there filming a documentary for a university project on hardcore, and he interviewed Nick’s band. They slowly started forming a friendship through music and shows, and this eventually led to the formation of Sundowner.

From the outset, their goal was to start a band that was drum and bass driven, with“noise fucker shit” layered on top of it. Clearly, they’ve succeeded: suspended chords and jarring time signatures mesh and meld while Isaac’s wild but tight drumming holds it all together. Hints of melody poke brightly through the din, the band’s various temperaments inspiring every facet of their cathartic sound: Isaac is unbothered; Nick is an anxious wreck; and Cole is somewhere in the middle, an anchor bridging the two.

The trio started properly writing songs, and the music emerged organically, inconspicuously. They write most of the material on the spot, through improvised practices and flashes of inspiration, pulling riffs and grooves out of the extended jams that fill their practice space in the basement of Houndstooth, a dive bar in Toronto’s west end. The music also comes from other places, fragments recorded as demos in quiet bedrooms, exploding into the personal and the macabre. Nick plays drop D like he hates it, bashing his guitar into screeching submission as torrents of screams and crashing cymbals, courtesy of Cole and Isaac, swirl in cacophony around the trio. “Crank it to ten and pray” is a good way to summarize their sound and performance ethos, a manifesto of dynamic sounds that flirt with punk, noise rock, and post-hardcore.

Cole’s lyrics are inspired by true stories about damaged people, many of whom he’s met in reallife and who’ve lived actual horror stories. It’s a writing prompt that delivers harrowing results,ones that deserve to be bellowed.

Dripping with DIY spirit, the band’s relentless work ethic has resulted in two EPs and tours around Ontario and Quebec, where they’ve honed their blistering live show into an onslaught of pointed cacophony. Their shows are pure energy, unrestrained and pummeling, the band using every inch of the stage (and pit) to thrash and slash through their chugging compositions.Drums collapse, amps fizzle and burn, and the band plays on.

While their musical DNA is rooted in noise-rock (METZ, The Jesus Lizard, Drive Like Jehu, Unwound, Bleach-era Nirvana), the spacier, more melodic elements betray their love for 90s alternative. Failure and HUM are both influences, while the most surprising inspiration comes inthe form of a Southern rap god: Sundowner are huge fans of 2 Chainz and know a surprising amount of his pre-fame persona (Tity Boi). “Everything Brick Squad” is their band anthem, as it should be.

Their debut full-length, Work Dream, will be released in Spring 2025 on zBTFD, a nascent but fast-rising arts and music collective out of Brantford, Ontario.

Rip one, go fuck yerself, and listen to Sundowner.

- Marko Djurdjić (Exclaim!)