Introducing: Sunshine

Towards the end of 2019, six guys from the Ruhr region of Germany believed they’d stumbled upon something special as they fleshed out the early days of a new project that toed the line between death metal and grindcore. The pandemic and a few lineup changes slowed down that early excitement and put the launch of Sunshine on hold until 2022, but it’s been well worth the wait.

Sunshine combines, in their words, “a vibrant amalgamation of diverse subgenres,” bringing together elements of hardcore, punk and black metal in an aggressive yet harmonic whirlwind of musical energy. Formed of six guys who’d been active in various metal bands for several years, Sunshine combine to bring us an intriguing sound that they summarise as “uncompromising, honest and love.”

Describing the Sunshine sound, the band told us: “Definitely varied. We don’t ascribe to any particular genre, but make the music that we like and the music that seems right to us emotionally. The basis lies somewhere between death metal and grindcore, but we would never want to limit ourselves to that.”

Our first taste of Sunshine was their latest single Breakcore Beats, which opens up with high-pitched guitars and intense drums. It drops into a cool riff that flows into a lively verse of wild vocals supported by a chunky riff and driving drums, which intensifies even further into a huge chorus. That gives way to a fun melodic guitar solo supported by drawn-out guitar chords, then explodes back into the heavy rhythmic guitars, drums and vocals. A second chorus drops into a noodling guitar then chugging guitars and big cymbal crashes supporting more intense vocals. The pace suddenly drops, before another awesome guitar solo takes over to tee up a final powerful blast of vocals.

On the track, the band told us: “The response so far has been very positive. The song is very multi-layered and is partly reminiscent of the songwriting of the early 2000s. The time in which we all have our origins. Especially the older generations of metal listeners will feel a few years younger when they hear the song.” Check it out in the video here:

That track follows on from last year’s single Kein Gott, which opens up with really cool high-pitched guitar that drops into an awesome spinning riff. That tees up huge opening vocals supported by fun driving guitars and drums, and a delicious rhythmic guitar riff. Wild dual guitars follow and drop into more intense vocals. The pace eventually drops into drawn-out guitar chords and a creeping little lick that brings it to an end. Check the track out in the video here:

Sunshine’s members come from varied musical backgrounds that influence the band’s sound. As they explain: “Most of the interfaces can probably be found in the old metalcore and death metal songs. The influences start with Metallica and end with hip hop. When we’re on the bus together, there’s always bound to be an argument about what music we want to listen to during the journey. The ‘off’ switch usually wins in the end.

“Our own history probably influences us the most. Both musically and lyrically. Some of us have already made music with well-known bands in the youth centre, when the well-known bands were still kidz. Lyrically, we are influenced by current political issues and a love of life.”

There’s plenty more to come from Sunshine when the time is right and, if they’re to be believed, it gives us every reason to be very excited about it. As the band tell us: “Basically we have a complete album ready, but as we want to keep our production standards high, it’s always a question of funding in the end. If we get the necessary support, then it could be a whole album or we could produce new singles in the summer. Let’s see what it will be in the end. If it’s ‘only’ singles, it will be difficult to decide which songs we take. The ones we have finished are all incredibly strong, and each one would deserve to be the next single.”

But they also explain that the true magic of Sunshine is seeing them play live: “We can only invite everyone to experience one of our shows live. We are a live band, and everyone who knows us will agree with that immediately. We also love meeting new people.”

You can follow Sunshine on Facebook and Instagram, and check out their music on Spotify, Bandcamp, Apple Music and YouTube.