ALBUM OF THE DAY Sunday Mourners, “A-Rhythm Absolute” By Elle Carroll · January 20, 2026 ​ ​

Los Angeles, California

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00:10 / 00:58

Los Angeles, California

It’s a great time to be an indie band making anything that sounds post-punk. Dry Cleaning and Black Country, New Road have outlasted their initial hype cycles and begun chugging toward longevity. Geese have invited a stunning amount of breathless adulation from prestige media who were indifferent to indie rock five seconds ago. Poptimism’s cultural capture is over! Everyone grab a delay pedal and arpeggiate a sus chord! People who watch Saturday Night Live will know who you are!

It’s funny, then, to consider “Careers in Acting,” the opening salvo of A-Rhythm Absolute. On it, Sunday Mourners frontman Quinn Robinson disavows the trappings of success, swearing off an acting career and internet fame and instead promising to “make it big in the parking lot.” (The band is, as you might have deduced, from Los Angeles.) It’s not so much that this new crop are anti-selling-out in the same way as their ‘80s forebears, just that they’d likely walk out of a label meeting in which their collective Instagram follower count was analyzed as a success metric. That’s not a bad thing.

Throughout the record’s 10 tracks, the foursome work through their influences: Subway Sect, Richard Hell & the Voidoids, and Television, by their own admission. Wire is an obvious touchpoint. The Strokes, too, on the opening chords of “Unwitting Boy.” There’s a lot of art-punk happening alongside. Someone seems to be taking a bow to a bass on “There’s A Garden In You.” It’s fun.

Robinson has cited the “claustrophobia brought on by [the] vastness” of new adult responsibilities as inspiration for album closer “When Dreams Come True,” but little about A-Rhythm Absolute feels actually claustrophobic or overly mature. On “11,000 Volts,” Robinson gleefully elongates multiple single-syllable words of, “I took 11,000 volts to the head/ And I know if I took one more/ I would be dead.” Again, it’s fun. They’re 24, they love Lou Reed, they’re randomly punching out a few piano chords in the background of “Unwitting Boy” because it sounds chaotic and cool. They’re turning a silly country-inflected love song into a heavy and buzzy 12-minute groove with a Peter Hook-esque bassline. (It’s called “Darling,” and it’s one of the best songs on the record.) Believe the hype as much or little as you like; that A-Rhythm Absolute is perhaps the first smart and solid debut of the year is already assured.

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