Sol y Nieve Records- Sun Splitter, Live on WFMU, Cassette

We are pleased to announce the upcoming release of Sun Splitter, Live on WFMU's My Castle of Quiet on a limited edition cassette.  We are very excited to be doing this release with our good friend at Sol y Nieve.  We will post updates here when the cassette is available.

In addition, we will be releasing a brand new full length, another live set and a number of releases for our side projects in the next few months.

Check back for updates!

Live on WFMU and Live at the Acheron

We took a trip to NYC and Jersey City this last week.

First stop was a live set for Wm. Berger's My Castle of Quiet on WFMU in Jersey City. You can stream it or download the full set here (as well as the rest of the program):

http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/47943

The next night we played at the Acheron in Brooklyn. The folks at Metal Injection were good enough to record and upload a video of "Eye of Jupiter," which you may view here:

http://www.metalinjection.net/tv/view/10237/sun-splitter-live-at-the-acheron

Good times were had by all. Thanks to Wm. and the Acheron especially for giving us a reason to head out East.

More kind words from Brainwashed

Creaig Dunton of Brainwashed, who also wrote us a very nice writeup on Sun Splitter II a while back, had some more good things to say about III.

Sun Splitter's debut managed to encapsulate all of the things I enjoy about heavy metal music (sludgy, memorable riffs, an appropriately dark atmosphere), without much emphasis on the stuff I have never been fond of (overwrought cookie monster vocals, trite blasphemy, etc).  They continue that approach here, and continuing to use a stiff drum machine that hints at the brilliance of early Godflesh without sounding like an intentional copy.

Read the full review on Brainwashed.

A Review for Sun Splitter III on Anti-Gravity Bunny

Just some kind words from Anti-Gravity Bunny:  

Seriously, this is just monstrous in every way. The riffs are skull crushing, a wall of reverb and distortion sounding like napalm melting your core, drum machines hitting harder than any human could, explosive blasts that level cities, with an abusive assault of rapid-fire fury for the second half of “The Serpent’s Golden Death” where the individual hits coalesce into a waterfall of insanity, static vocals that roar their way to the surface, guitars that chug & rattle, at home only in Hell’s scorched valley, crusted under the black sun. 

  Read the Full Review on Anti-Gravity Bunny.

The record is done. It's officially released on BloodLust! and you can buy it from our Bandcamp page. There are also downloads of all our other major recording available for streaming or download. Enjoy.

The official release party is tomorrow, as it so happens, and you all should come. It's at the Cobra Lounge which is right by the green line on Ashland so transit yourselves out there and rock out. We are opening the show and will be followed by Maledicere, Anatomy of Habit and Rosenkopf. It is going to be a ridiculously good show and also the record release for Anatomy of Habit's new EP.

New album is coming together. Expected release is June 22nd on Bloodlust! Click here for more info.

Co-Pros show recap

Last night was a blast at the Co-Prosperity Sphere. Thanks to all who came out to enjoy the spectacle, and my sincere thanks to Ed Mar and all the bands for bringing it all together seamlessly.

Here are clips of all four acts last night. Much love to Jon Rosenthal and The Inarguable for documenting the event.

Rabid Rabbit- Goliad
Sun Splitter- The Anthropocene
Andre Foisy- Complete set
ONO- untitled

Next show: Saturday, January 28th @ Co-Prosperity Sphere

Coming up in a few weeks we are very excited to be part of an evening of excellent heavy/weird bands here in our home neighborhood of Bridgeport. The Co-Prosperity Sphere will be graciously hosting us on Saturday, January 28th 2012 along with ONO, FOISY and RABID RABBIT.


ONO
Classic Chicago art-rock/no-wave pioneers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gi-RU2aPuQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IA8JR54paM&feature=related

http://ono1980.com/

"Seeing this band live, it's like they change the lighting in a room without any kind of special effects. It's less a performance and more an exhibition of raw, soulful splendor, unmiterated by any gimmickry, appeasement, or fake bad boy attitudes. A wall of sound and song will delineate into an instrumental industrial ballad; organ, guitar, lap steel, electric drill, and sheet metal will interlace, sparks will fly, and just when you might think there may not have been a plan, a ghostly sort of crooning that could fit into a David Lynch movie might emerge from out of the fog, and you will find that you've just seen a triumphant epic sewn together in front of your very eyes, yet no secrets have been revealed" -Delirious Insomniac

ANDRÉ FOISY
Guitarist and co-founder of deconstructionist black metal group Locrian
http://acid-marshmallow.com/index.php?/archive/andre-foisy/

http://lndofdecay.blogspot.com/


Foisy's solo work has been described, by The Inarguable, as "layers of soft strong flowing beauty, building and eventually falling through peace and climax into a moment when he seems to look back with regret. His anticipations never quite find resolution, and his screams tell of the sort of self-hating dismissal that comes so potently after complete surrender to beauty".

SUN SPLITTER
Chicago psychedelic metal trio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2blwp_QClw

http://sunsplitter.blogspot.com/

“For one, the group is more melodic than your typical doom band. Their songs tend to wander, but their meditative passages are punctuated by cascading riffs that follow unusually active chord progressions. Their massive sound is flavored with noise and industrial music, in part because of the drum machine, but the rhythms aren't sterile and
mechanical…Sun Splitter are also more aggressive than most other doom acts—sometimes it sounds like they're trying to tear their songs apart from the inside.” Miles Raymer, Chicago Reader

“Their drum-machine and loop-fueled excursions through noise, droning doom metal, harsh metal grooves, and early 80s "no wave" has earned them a special place in my heart as one of the absolute weirdest and original bands in these recent years.” Jon Rosenthal, The Inarguable

RABID RABBIT
Chicago-based, female-fronted, doom outfit
http://rabidrabbit.bandcamp.com/

http://rabidrabbitmusic.blogspot.com/

""Czarny Sen" is the latest from Chicago doom terrorists Rabid Rabbit, who've been supplying the city with sonic attacks for years now and they've teamed up with local label BloodLust! to unveil this stellar new soundtrack of uneasy vibes and heavy funeral dirge molasses. With 2 bass players, huge drums and psychedelic/metallic guitar, Rabid Rabbit pummel your ears with gloom filled heavy repetition only tempered by bassist/vocalist Andrea Jablonski's ethereal vocal croon tempting the listener to travel further towards inevitable disaster. If seasonal depression is your bag then this is the soundtrack to get you through these frozen months" - Permanent Records

Sun Splitter @ Mortville 10.8.2011

Howdy folks. Been awhile since we checked in. We've been busy since our summer tour doing a lot of writing, and not much else. A couple weeks ago we debuted our new track Time Cathedral at Mortville, and here it is for you all to check out. The song is split into two videos below:

Sun Splitter/Bridesmaid June tour dates

Next up: Thursday June 2nd at Memories with Across Tundras and Angel Eyes

After that we'll be hitting the road for a bit. We're kicking it off with a killer show at Mortville on June 17th with Tiger Hatchery, Lechuguillas and Socially Retarded then doing the following dates with Bridesmaid.

6/18/2011 - Cleveland, OH @ 71st Door w/Black Bloc, Dead Peasant Insurance, Fascist Insect
6/19/2011 - Buffalo, NY @ The Sound Lab w/ Dirt Eyes and Sonorous Gale
6/20/2011 - Philadelphia, PA @ The M Room w/Burden and Sadgiqacea
6/21/2011 - Wilmington, DE @ The Baum Shelter
6/22/2011 - Raleigh, NC @ Slim's w/ Squall and Hog
6/23/2011 - Nashville, TN @ Little Hamilton Collective
6/24/2011 - Dayton, OH @ Blind Bobs

Kaleid Series: Thursday, May 5th

Brainwashed Review: Sun Splitter/Bridesmaid split

Brainwashed had some nice words to say about the new split 7" with Bridesmaid.

Link Here.

"After recently loving the Sun Splitter cassette on Land of Decay, I had high hopes going into this split and they most certainly came through. Their half here stands up proudly with that tape, which is no easy feat, and the Bridesmaid side is no slouch either.

Bridesmaid, who I was not really familiar with are definitely sailing similar waters to Sun Splitter, but still put their own unique spin on things. "Vilkin' It For All It's Worth" is a fully instrumental piece that initially conjures up images of smoke and bong water, with its overdriven bass and garage band drums that are just the right amount of messy. It’s an unrelenting headbanging delight until the final 30 seconds or so, where it just goes full bore into grindcore assault, shattering the comfortable repetition that preceded it violently.

On the other side, "Plum Blossom" by Sun Splitter is cut from the same cloth as their tape. Opening with a robotic cymbal passage into their wonderfully diverse Sabbath riffs, the track is pure noisy bliss. While the song doesn’t quite transform into as many odd configurations as some of their other songs, it does carefully balance a repeated vocal mantra with big, caveman riffs and more complex guitar notes, dissolving into screams and noise in the middle segment. Subtlety is tossed out the window at the end, when the drum machine is programmed for "machine gun" and the guitar is pure death metal.

Paired together, they both highlight different aspects of the sludgy, post-doom metal scene. The contrast between Bridesmaid's ramshackle drums and Sun Splitter's digital precision is especially noticeable since both are matched with heavy, fuzzed out bass guitars, but neither is better than the other, they're just different: different, but equally badass."

Show report, 4.24 @ the Bottle

Thanks to everyone who made it out last night! We knew there were plenty of you heathens that wouldn't let a measly resurrection stop you.

Oyarsa kicked off the night, with a brutal minimalist slant on blackened doom. Northless from Milwaukee pummeled the bottle and sounded better than ever on the nice P.A. system. We went on last, and managed to make our way through a new track without a hitch. Excellent night all around, and as always thanks to the Empty Bottle for having us.

Next up: Thursday, May 5th @ the Impala Gallery in Rogers Park w/ Mind over Mirrors and Steven Hess/Mike Weiss

Sunday, April 24th w/Northless, Oyarsa

7" Available for order now!

We spent an incredible weekend on the road with Lechuguillas and Bridesmaid, and celebrated the release our our split 7" with Bridesmaid on Friday in Columbus. Much thanks to all involved, especially Louis @ the Stone Tavern in Kent, Aaron Vilk in Athens and Bridesmaid Bob/Carabar Ron in Columbus.

With that said, the 7" is now for sale!


The split was pressed in a run of 500, with 100 colored vinyl (gold-ish, green-ish w/ black swirl) and 400 black vinyl. The colored copies are available only through Bastard Sloth, and can be found here: http://bastardsloth.blogspot.com/
We will have copies of the black vinyl at all upcoming shows, and you can email us at splitterofsuns@gmail.com directly if you are interested in distro pricing.

DVD of the last Mopery show

Thanks to Gonzo Chicago for putting this collection together from the last Mopery show on 8.28.10. This was one of the best things we've ever been a part of, and we're very excited to be included in this dvd project.

You can buy them at Reckless Records for $6, or check out the Gonzo Chicago blog here.

This what Miles Raymer at the Reader has to say about the dvd:

"For the couple of years it existed, the Mopery was an oasis of unkempt, wild-eyed, art-damaged DIY punkitude in rapidly yuppifying Logan Square. A vast and scruffy loft hidden above a nondescript neighborhood grocery store, it hosted a handful of tent-dwelling residents and an impressively packed schedule of visiting musical acts, many of them on the punk/noise/sludge axis.

Despite the sometimes aggressive amount of weirdness on display (see the aforementioned people living in tents), the Mopery was pretty widely beloved, and the venue's final show last August brought out a crowd that filled pretty much every square foot of it, extended down the lengthy flight of stairs leading up to it, and spilled out onto the street. The air was a dense miasma of sweat and smoke, compounded by the considerable background humidity of a late-summer Chicago night, and though I was only there for a little while I walked out completely drenched.

The event featured 13 Mopery favorites providing the soundtrack to the loft's sendoff, including Loose Dudes, Paper Mice, and Mark Solotroff. One attendee, Victor Spatafora, brought along what the blog Gonzo Chicago refers to as "a completely ridiculous" high-def video camera to document the action. Spatafora has recently put out a DVD of his footage for anyone looking to relive (or piece together memories of) that night.

Copies of the DVD are available at Reckless for six dollars, or through Gonzo Chicago for a suggested donation of five (e-mail hotmetaldobermans@gmail.com)."

Upcoming Shows

3.24- Stone Tavern, Kent OH w/ Lechuguillas
3.25- Carabar, Columbus OH w/Bridesmaid, Lechuguillas and Stormbrewer. 7" release show.
3.26- The E.R., Athens OH w/Bridesmaid, Lechuguillas, Nyodene D and Hollows

Stay tuned for a couple excellent Chicago shows in April and May.

Dead Dragon Mountain

Dead Dragon Mountain is a recording project of Anthony Dunn and Jacob Essak. We do this project as an opportunity to explore the use of free improvisation, chance and spontaneity in the studio. This February we did a series of recordings that are now compiled as the album Huddled Masses Under a Burning Sky.

The album was conceived, written, recorded and mixed during the month of February at the Slaughterhouse (aka Super Double Happy Panda Pro Audio Recordings). For a short period of time, we are offering a free download of the mp3 files for the entire album.

Download here.

Brainwashed reviews II

Thanks to Brainwashed for another nice review.

Link here.

A limited cassette release of an even more limited CD-R, Chicago's Sun Splitter, in the span of around 30 minutes, condense all of what I consider to be the best moments of the past 40 years of metal. With elements of drone, doom, industrial, and even classic rock, it all comes together as a perfectly conceived release.

Land of Decay

Admittedly, I've never been a huge metal person. I find bands and albums that I enjoy, but it's not a scene I ever really immersed myself in, largely because whenever I did, I got burnt out rather quickly. It's also one where I find elements I love (big, heavy riffs, melodic solos) with ones I'm not so fond of (growled vocals, "shredding"). It's almost like this trio knew what I liked and tailored the album for my tastes.

For example, "Cairn of Old Eyes" opens with taut, rhythmic riffs over a stiff machine beat, but with changing sounds and structures, it has the complexity of prog rock without the unnecessary pretense. Along with this there’s more than a healthy dose of drawn out guitar tones and whispered, mantra like vocals. Closer "Carrion Eater" is cut from the same cloth, opening with similar vocals and a warm guitar tone, but focuses more on the melody, even with the big riffs.

"Northern Blood Tithe" has some of the dual rhythm guitar/drum machine combo sound that has garnered many comparisons to early Godflesh, but there’s just as much Sabbath to be heard. The melodic elements reminded me of mid-period Thin Lizzy, but that’s pretty much my only go-to touchstone for the '70s rock genre. As a whole it's slower, more spacious, with vocals so buried and processed they sound like an additional instrument more than anything else.

It follows the same template as "Earth Burner," in that both are more doomy and repetitious, but in a carefully measured way. The repetition in both serve to build tension, with "Earth Burner" slowly adding changes in to keep the track dynamic, but without interrupting the deliberate drone structure.

With a style that is reminiscent of many, but sounds like none, Sun Splitter has created one of the best metal albums without adhering to any specific conventions. There's melody, there's monolithic guitar riffs, there's dark, bleak ambience, and so much more that comes together so perfectly that I can't help but love this tape.

Exclaim.ca review of II

Thanks to Mike Simpson at Exclaim.ca for the kind words, here's what he had to say:

"Yet another worthy addition to Chicago, IL's diverse metal scene, Sun Splitter, with new EP II, have created a unique fusion of styles, some blackened, some doom, some almost unintelligible underneath the layers of unsettling noise present throughout the proceedings. The band's use of a drum machine brings forth the obligatory Godflesh reference, but with the addition of ambient, distorted vocals, the more experimental aspects of Blut Aus Nord also come to mind. The riffs are no small matter of discussion either; sometimes simple and given to industrial repetition, over the course of each of the lengthy four songs (the shortest clocking in at over six minutes), the group successfully morph their initial motifs into things entirely different, as on "Earth Burner," where themes hearkening back to the lurking doom of Trouble and Candlemass rear their ugly heads over a bed of increasingly harsh noise. One can only hope that a full-length to better sketch out these intriguing ideas is soon to follow.
(Land of Decay)"