“Apocalypse Every time was an essential document for me to make,” Bowman tells Atwood Journal. “I used to be coming dangerously near succumbing to apathy and hopelessness, which isn’t in my nature. The title monitor speaks to this, and the next songs are reflections which function reminders of the great thing about life and of the previous.”

“Infinite Pleasure finds me taking a step ahead after a second of reflection,” he provides. “I consider myself as a little bit of an idealist in addition to an optimist, however the pendulum should swing in each instructions. I’ve to watch out. Infinite Pleasure is a document about processing ache somewhat than trying to sidestep it. There’s a sure pleasure which comes from that course of which might’t be discovered elsewhere.”

“This document was all about every of us realizing and embracing our strengths as people after which coming collectively as a unit, stronger and extra assured. There could be no passengers in a trio. It was an invigorating problem. Our roles are extra clearly outlined now than ever earlier than.”

The journey between the band’s final album and this EP was one among reckoning, reflection, and rediscovery – not just for the band as a unit (determining who they have been sans-guitarist Ray Libby), but in addition for Bowman himself:

“The songs on Infinite Pleasure replicate an oceanic scope of feelings which coloured the final yr of my life,” he explains. “In October of 2022 I received clear after a decade spent battling with alcohol abuse. Within the direct aftermath, it was like experiencing a whole ten years’ price of development, in a matter of months. Development doesn’t happen unbiased of ache, sorrow, pleasure – each emotion conceivable. I needed to undergo all of it, and resist none of it.”

“There’s a number of ache captured and positioned inside these songs, in addition to an elusive sense of hope. Despite the ache, there’s the notion that pleasure must be attainable, on the market, someplace. Proper?”

The phrase Infinite Pleasure, which Bowman stumbled upon earlier this yr while studying Carl Sagan’s 1985 science fiction novel “Contact,” opens up a Pandora’s Field of questions.

Does such a phenomenon even exist – and if it did, what wouldn’t it be like? Is it one countless bout of ecstasy, or is it extra nuanced? In spite of everything, you’ll be able to’t know true pleasure with out experiencing ache and struggling.

The time period mystified Bowman as properly, frightening a robust response. “The pairing of phrases appeared to me as being virtually oxymoronic,” he recollects. “Then I began contemplating the chances. So long as there are clever residing beings, the chance for pleasure exists. Although it could actually’t be skilled perpetually, it’s a renewable useful resource. Pleasure is an infinite reservoir which exists beneath the floor of palpable actuality – accessible in fragments, most purely once we stop in trying to understand it. This concept struck me, maybe as a result of it appeared so naïve, and but I couldn’t negate it.”

The journey of Infinite Pleasure the document is thereby one among empowerment, launch, and radical acceptance, and its songs replicate as a lot. Opening monitor “Lunar Shadows” is an effervescent and upbeat breakup tune – an anthem, actually – that seeks to be taught and develop from the previous, somewhat than look again on it bitterly. “It’s time to scrub up my act, time to open up my eyes,” Bowman sings within the second verse, resolved to maneuver ahead extra positively and higher himself: “Don’t let it hold you down,” he reminds himself as collectively, the band spill forth in a cinematic refrain:

My love, I ponder the way you’ve been
The life we misplaced, the life we spent
My love, I ponder the place it went
Should the whole lot die in the long run?

The long run’s strolling out that door
So inform me what you’re ready for
Rise up and get out
However don’t let it hold you down

– “Lunar Shadows, “Unhealthy Suns”

The EP’s three pre-release singles – “The One I Used to Love,” “Astral Plans,” and “Dwelling or Dying” – are all earworms in their very own proper, marrying depth with dynamics as Unhealthy Suns deal with listeners to a stunning array of infectious melodies and hard-hitting beats.

“The One I Used to Love” is a multi-faceted song-story that sees Bowman singing about quitting ingesting: “Newly free from the shackles of an extended, sordid entanglement with dependancy, I surveyed the panorama of my life in that second, and I let my pen get to work. With this tune, I bid farewell to a tragic romance with alcohol, and a brand new odyssey unfolds.”

“Now I’m misplaced at sea, at what price I’m free,” he sings within the refrain, not but totally free from dependancy’s grasp however hoping he will get there quickly.

Tears have been flowing
As an alternative of champagne
I n the primary class of an airplane
What an improve

Once I landed is when the textual content got here
You have been asking me to elucidate what I can’t say
Crammed the void, received destroyed
However the gap in my coronary heart nonetheless remained, yeah
Then I needed to say precisely the unsuitable factor
As soon as once more…

– “The One I Used to Love,” Unhealthy Suns

The band transfer us to bop in “Astral Plans,” a cerebral tune with a powerful, seductive beat. Bowman says it’s his try to “have a look at goal actuality from a cosmic perspective.”

“It stems from my rising frustration with the rigidity of western thought in a world full of paradoxes, filtered by means of the story of a soldier coming residence from conflict to find their associate has been untrue,” he explains. “I had a falling out with anyone near me who I attempted to make a relationship work for years by means of dysfunction. I had love and religion that we may transfer previous our laborious occasions and right into a brighter future.”

“That didn’t occur, and finally, I ended up feeling blindsided after they reduce me out of their life. I got here to comprehend that I couldn’t be mad at this particular person ceaselessly and needed to take into account that I used to be equally guilty for our downfall. This was a liberating discovery. Whichever aspect of the equation you end up on, generally you simply should say or hear ‘I really like you, that’s why I’m strolling away.’”

Additional EP standouts embrace “Every part Is…,” an unfiltered reckoning with a daring, vibrant strut, and “Dwelling or Dying,” the document’s fantastically tender and emotionally charged finale. Bowman’s soul-stirring efficiency is achingly intimate, his phrases empathetic and weak as he sings a heartfelt tune for his fiancée, Allison, a flight attendant whose goals go previous the skies:

I really feel like I’m mendacity
I’m dishonest myself
I’m uninterested in making an attempt to please everybody else
I really feel like I do as a result of it’s true
No person is aware of me such as you
Am I residing or dying?
Am I residing or dying?

I’m flying however I’m dying to return down
I can’t flip this sense round
Like lightning, I received’t make a sound
Persuade myself that I’m unsuitable
Misplace my religion in a tune
Make all of it go away till I wake

– “Dwelling or Dying,” Unhealthy Suns

“On the time, she was standing at a precipice, 5 years in to her job, working as a flight attendant for American Airways,” Bowman notes. “Whereas she beloved facets of it, particularly the liberty to journey the world, she couldn’t rid herself of the sensation that this wasn’t the trail she was meant to be on ceaselessly. Her passions have been elsewhere, and it was time to get off the journey and discover different prospects.”

“The prospect of going again to sq. one could be greater than sufficient to petrify an individual into perpetual complacency. Listening to her trip over time, finally I noticed that I used to be doing her a disservice in trying to reaffirm her profession decisions up till that time. I, of all folks, could be a whole hypocrite to not encourage and assist her choice to take the leap and comply with her goals, whatever the perceived threat concerned.”

“I got here to comprehend that every one I needed to do was hear, and hear good. In the case of the large image, our non subsiding instincts hardly ever steer us within the unsuitable course, no matter whether or not the street forward is perhaps hid in a fog. Dwelling a life in a state worry or remorse is hardly residing and life is simply too stunning to waste.”

Every of Infinite Pleasure‘s six songs finds Unhealthy Suns basking within the heat glow of ache, love, development, and alter.

As open a e-book as they’ve ever been, the trio of Bowman, Bennett, and Morris held nothing again in crafting a decent, inviting, and immediately memorable assortment that burns vibrant with a zest and zeal for all times.

For his half, Bowman hopes listeners takes no matter they should from this document.

“My aim was, and all the time is, to permit room for each doable response to happen,” he shares. “Music tends to function a gateway to our purest feelings. I is perhaps listening to a cheerful tune, and abruptly I’m bawling. A somber piece of music can fill me with an unimaginable sense of marvel. I don’t faux to grasp how or why this stuff correlate. Understanding this a lot, I by no means try to package deal anyone given thought or emotion into a bit of music. Each tune is a world unto itself; a special lyric may resonate every time you hear the identical tune, relying on the place you’re at whenever you’re listening to it.”

There’s loads to unpack and course of right here, and the one manner to try this is by diving headfirst into the songs themselves. Expertise the total document by way of our under stream, and peek inside Unhealthy Suns’ Infinite Pleasure EP with Atwood Journal as Christo Bowman takes us track-by-track by means of the music and lyrics of the band’s newest launch!

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