Doomed Nation

Sounds For The Lost Generation

Doomed Confessionary: Josh Frost (Sundowner)

Sundowner is a sludge metal band from Adelaide, Australia.

A heavy dirge of grim, feedback laden, nihilistic sludge. Intoxicated and hostile blues mixed with aggressive and intense mid tempo swing and violent hardcore punk passages; for the burnt out and downtrodden. Intended for those set on personal annihilation to drop out of life and embrace the sacred ritual of the riff. Uneasy listening for troubled times.

Sundowner’s sophomore full-length album »Lysergic Ritual« was released on April 20th, 2024, available now on limited vinyl and digital.

Can you say a few words about your band?
Sundowner is a heavy, noisy, grimy, filthy sludge band from Adelaide, Australia.

What was the biggest challenge for the band?
The biggest challenge is getting to the places we want to play, cities in Australia are so spread out that it’s difficult to line up time and funds for everyone to be able to travel with it being sustainable.

What can you be most proud of so far?
Our most recent album, »Lysergic Ritual«. It came out exactly as wanted, it’s the best representation to date of what Sundowner is.

What was your biggest regret?
No regrets. There’s been some learning experiences, but no regrets.
Maybe personally looking back now, I would have invested full time into starting Sundowner when I first conceived the idea back in 2016.

What was the best concert/tour so far and why?
Best show so far I would say was Sunburn Festival in April this year in Canberra. Amazing bands, venue, and the whole thing ran perfectly. Love going over for that one!

What was the biggest surprise on the music scene for you?
How strong the sludge/doom scene in Australia is, and it always seems to be growing. There’s always new bands popping up.

What is currently in your heavy musical rotation?
I’ve always got EyeHateGod on high rotation, lately also been listening to the Simian Steel album, Meth Drinker, Dopethrone, Iron Monkey, Soilent Green, Aura Noir, Rust (the Swedish black thrash band), Bathory, Darkthrone. Usually swinging between sludge/doom and black metal stuff, too many bands to name.

What was the best advice you’ve ever been given as a musician?
Don’t expect anything, make music because you love doing it, otherwise don’t do it!
If you’re going to release your own music know your rights too.

What are your guilty pleasures?
Not a ‘guilty pleasure’ really, because I just like it, but I also listen to a lot of country music. The good stuff like Hank Williams (Sr, Jr, III) , Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, David Allen Coe, Merle Haggard, etc. Townes Van Zandt is amazing too.

Can you say something more about the music scene in Adelaide / South Australia?
Our home city Adelaide doesn’t have a real big sludge/doom scene, but the Australian scene as a whole is really strong. Melbourne and Sydney have a lot of great bands that we fit in well with so we love getting over to those cities to play, there’s too many to name (and i don’t wanna forget anyone…..)

Where can we see you live this year (concerts/tours)?
Our next shows in our home city are supporting EyeHateGod on their July Australian tour, also with Goatwhore. Then we’ll also be supporting Thou and Full Of Hell when they come through Adelaide in August.

What are your plans for the future as a band?
The plans for the future are to continue writing and releasing new music. On the live front the aim is to start playing less in Adelaide and get to the other cities around Australia more; Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Perth, Hobart, and anywhere in between that will have us!

How can people best support your band?
The best way to support Sundowner is thru our Bandcamp page at: sundownersludge.bandcamp.com.
All our music is up there for ‘name your price’ download and we sell all our merch thru there as well. (postage prices suck for the most part, we know; being music fans, but obviously that’s totally out of our control…..)

Do you have any message for your listeners?
Thank you to anyone who takes the time to check out our music, comes to a show and/or buys some merch! Doing everything DIY, any and all support is hugely appreciated!

Links:
Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube

Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.