Born from post-industrial areas of Scotland, where wounds from the socio-economic decline have barely healed to scars, and we now find abandoned industry being reclaimed by nature’s slow but unrelenting march. It’s no surprise that when asked about their influences Scottish heavy-post-shoegazers Sunstinger pointed to a strong environmental influence, eschewing the normal litany of bands, that all too often feels like a roll call rather than any meaningful thread to understanding a band’s sound. On the band’s expansive new EP ‘Spare Me the Rapture’, Sunstinger’s sound is the product of their environment; beautiful but crushing, abrasive but oneiric and oppressive but romantic. Over the course of the EP’s six tracks, which move between delicate ethereal passages to tsunamis of fuzz warped by reverse reverbs, the band look to find comfort in the misery, romanticising the agony just to survive. Taylor says ‘No matter where someone lives, the usually paint the walls’.
‘Spare Me the Rapture’ is the band’s third EP, following 2001’s ‘Beyond the Frame’ and 2004’s highly acclaimed ‘Worthless’. These, alongside a prolific number of stand-alone singles, have helped cement the band as one of the most essential voices on the UK shoegaze scene. Further solidified by the band’s reputation for their intense live shows, foregoing any ‘banter’, the band prefer to cultivate an atmosphere throughout, letting the music envelop and wash over the crowd, offering transcendence through volume, fuzz and reverb. This veritable rep attracted US label Sonic Rising Records, who re-issued the band’s debut EP on a range of retina widening vinyl.
Sunstinger are made up of Taylor Wright (vocals/guitar), David McCulloch (guitar), Scott Gourlay (guitar), Bill Anderson (Bass) and newest addition, Colm Boyle (Drums) who joined at the start of 2026. The addition of Colm on drums seems to have reinvigorated the band, adding a new pulse and forward motion to the tracks on ‘Spare Me the Rapture’.
When it came to write the EP, the band approached the project as whole, not simply the next collection of songs. With the new EP forming the next act in the Sunstinger story, while in itself offering a distinct beginning, middle and end. ‘Spare Me the Rapture’ revolves around the central theme of finding comfort in the misery, of letting melancholy arm’s wrap around you and convincing yourself that it couldn’t be any better. When speaking about how this helps form a lyrical perspective Taylor says ‘I find that I’m able to explore things much deeper lyrically when I have a concept that expands over a few months. It gives me the chance to really dig out my soul.’
The EP opens with ‘Zerosum’ which begins with a rising cacophony of noise before giving way to some chiming chords and euphoric reverbs. Already this feels like Sunstinger at their most expansive, toying with extreme dynamics and texture. This is all before the inevitable breaking of the dam. Ever quickening stabs feel foundation shakingly heavy and the following avalanche of fuzz feels impenetrable. Layers of guitars sit hauntingly in the mix, rising and falling, like half heard whispers. Lyrically the track deals with the numbness of being caught in a loop, the unending bleakness that blurs together into nothing, waiting for a tomorrow that never comes. The lyrics contain a nod back to the band’s debut ep Beyond The Frame, ‘have a look beyond the frame / we’re doused in pain’, a stark reminder of the depths the band find themselves in, not looking beyond the frame anymore, but completed submerged in it.
Title track, and first single, ‘Spare Me the Rapture’ follows, a call and response between guitars comes as close to loud/quiet/loud as Sunstinger get and gives the track its first hook. Colm’s machine gun snare drum signals the chorus, and it hits like the sun parting the clouds after the rain. Taylor intones ‘But I don’t care, so take me there’, providing a massive 90’s alt-rock hook. Sunstinger have never sounded like this before, pushing tempo’s and stretching into new sonic territory all while still maintaining their sound. The three guitars provide layer after layer for listeners to delve into, speaker shredding fuzz, reverse reverbs and modulated reverbs that wrap around melodies into infinity. Bill’s bass keeps everything locked in providing the gravitational centre for guitars to swirl around. Lyrically the track exemplifies the theme of the EP, finding comfort in misery, acceptance of your environment and choosing to live within rather looking to a rapture that will never come. The band took a heavy influence from Glasgow’s industrial landscape for the track but viewed from an outsiders Lens. The line ‘my blood couldn’t brave the iron stain’ is a reference to the struggle of finding your own way.
Already at the halfway point and straight out of the gate, second single, ‘Needrr’ keeps the pace up. Doused in punk-energy reminiscent of Slow Crush’s ‘Glow’ drums drive the track forward. As we hit the verse dynamics change completely and we’re dropped into a swirling, shimmering nebula. Lyrically the track dove tails between complete detachment and a claustrophobic panic attack, the numbness before the walls fall in around you. The music reflects the themes in the lyrics as the mania of the intro turns to calmer verse, while Colm’s drums keep pace underneath, like a low buzz when all you want to do is sleep. As we hit the mid-section guitars wail in the mix, while the tempo starts to drop and glitching guitars sound a fried brain trying to make sense of the world. A perfect way to close out side A.
Side B opens with ‘I Think I Half Remember’ as droning loops introduce us to the second half of the daydream/nightmare. A track based solely around guitars and vocals, the acoustic guitar gives the track it’s percussive rhythm. Guitars melt together underneath the vocals, lapping over one another like unending waves, impossible to determine where one begins and where one ends. Dreamy and euphoric, there’s a hint of ‘Loveless’ here, in the best possible way. This is a further expansion of Sunstinger’s sound, a widening of the sonic landscape they inhabit and can build upon. When approaching the lyrics for this track Taylor took some lines from D.H. Lawerence poems, cutting them together collage style, reminiscent of William Burroughs, and cutting them alongside his own. Bending perception by blurring dreams and reality, constructing something that half-makes sense like a faded memory.
‘Barely Here’ is the most collaborative offering on the EP, starting life as a demo Taylor brought to the band, then worked on and refined as it made it’s passage through the practice space to the studio. It begins by creeping in with some textural soundscape work, a single kick drum indicates what’s to come. When the guitars do hit they carry substantial weight all without being overbearingly heavy. Bill’s bass sound is impressively gnarly, adding heft throughout, and locking in with Colm’s kick drum to hammer the point home. As we hit the half way point there’s a calm before the storm that’s broken as all the band hammer their respective instruments, it feels like molten falling from the sky before the euphoria of the chorus hits back in.
Final track ‘Always Green’ opens with a huge drum sound, employing some gated reverse sounds to again show us this is Sunstinger reaching beyond the frame of their previous releases. Lyrically the track is rooted in experiences Taylor has had suffering from sleep paralysis and the between worlds feeling this evokes. The music and lyrics complement each other perfectly, thematically mirroring each other and in the process emphasising the emotional weight of their respective counterparts.
Following their own demoing process the band decamped to Organic Audio in Glasgow to work with producer Sean Mitchell. With a clear goal from the outset to capture the bands raw, suffocating energy of their live sound. The band decided not to indulge in the gear the studio may have offered, opting to record exactly how it’s played live.
When it came time to give the EP a visual language the band wanted the art to be a direct extension of the music’s headspace. It looks like physiological heat signatures trapped in the dark. Human shapes dissolving into deep blues and burning oranges. The visual equivalent of painting the walls in a dark room. Romanticizing your surroundings just to survive in them.
‘Spare Me the Rapture’ finds Sunstinger at their most expansive yet, unafraid to explore new sounds and a new approach to their songwriting. The band have mined their ideas to depths and in doing so produced a record that acknowledges their past but takes strides towards a larger, wider sonic palette. Lyrics that are raw and honest, brutally so at times, show a vulnerability that only adds a further dimension to the emotion that is wrapped up and conveyed by the volume, the crashing drums and crushing fuzz. Somehow it feels like only a beginning to something.