Sooner - “Days and Nights”

Words by Zach Romano

After what has felt like a long hiatus, Brooklyn four-piece Sooner are back with Days and Nights, a fantastic debut record. If you are sort of surprised that this is their first full album, you’re not alone. The band formed in 2016 and quickly released a couple of EPs, but due to a variety of factors (you guessed the big one) they have kept things close to the vest for the last few years. Sooner’s EPs were both solid, but Days and Nights represents a huge step forward for them. All four members of the band sound more confident with their instruments and in their abilities here, and the album presents a more realized sound and an increased willingness to take sonic risks. Most especially, singer Federica Tassano has fully stepped into her marvelous, wildly expressive voice.

Days and Nights is one of those records that is legitimately difficult to get through, but for the right reason: all of the songs here are so solid that it’s hard not to hit rewind as soon as one ends. This is especially true for the first two tracks. Opener “Boscobel” serves as a perfect summation of Sooner’s barbed dream pop sound. It eases you in with A Sunny Day in Glasgow-esque ambient fuzz, but after the drums kick in, Tassano’s voice floats above a wash of guitars that buzz, scrape, and chime. 

“Thursday” follows with the bass taking melody and a huge chorus that only a singer with Tassano’s talents could pull off. The way her vocals alternately sit on top of the guitar maelstrom and become a part of it recalls aughts NYC shoegaze band Asobi Seksu’s Yuki Chikudate (sidenote: the lead single on Asobi Seksu’s 2006 masterpiece Citrus was also called “Thursday”). Also much like Asobi Seksu, the guitars and songwriting here are excellent, but the vocals are really the key to what the band is doing. Tassano’s voice is crystalline but anything but brittle, and every word is like a toy for her to play with; volumes change, vowels move, whispers become wails and become whispers again.

“Portrait,” a short sound-collage interstitial follows “Thursday,” and after the intensity of the first two songs on the album, it is a welcome breather. The rest of the album follows that pattern, with groups of songs broken up by short, ambient palate cleansers (or outros, in the case of “Kingdoms”). “Blue” is a rework of “About the Blue,” a track off Sooner’s 2017 EP, and nowhere is it easier to hear how the band has expanded their ambition over the last few years. What was a straightforward and charming if melancholic track has become a two-sided epic with a second half that sounds like it could be on The Bends.

Days and Nights is out now via Good Eye Records. You can stream the album on your platform of choice or purchase it via Bandcamp. Keep up with the band by following them on Instagram.

Sooner’s next show is on April 14th at The Broadway with Monograms, Loosie, and No Kill. Tickets are available now!