AV Sunset Chase a Sound of Their Own on Second Album Vs Reality

Two years on from a lockdown formation and a self-released debut, AV Sunset are treating their second album as a proper reset. Vs Reality lands 4 September via Luton collective Vandalism Begins At Home, and it’s the first full project the quartet have written and recorded as a settled four-piece. They didn’t rush it. Rehearsal room hours got intense, every track picked apart in advance, then tracked with producer Tom Peters (Empire State Bastard, A Burial At Sea) at The Arch in Southport. Mastering by Stephen Kerrison added final polish.

Lead single “Maat Mons” is a compact blast of controlled chaos. Guitarist Tom Pegg calls it “the closest we’ve got to a straight-up banger,” and the four minutes stack loopers, octave effects, off-kilter reverbs, and shimmering synth textures over polyrhythms and fat riffs. The 65daysofstatic comparison almost makes itself, but AV Sunset pull in dirtier edges, feedback squeals, and a punk impatience that keeps it from feeling too tidy. It’s dense music that doesn’t lean on genre shorthand. The band themselves swerve easy classification: post-rock is a shorthand, sure, but they claim equal debts to noise rock, indie, prog, and electronic sound design.

The group spent the last year on UK stages with acts like ASIWYFA, Slow Crush, and Hubris, and more dates are booked through autumn. A Cambridge show hits the Portland Arms on 12 June, followed by Birmingham’s Rainbow on 5 September and Milton Keynes’ Craufurd Arms on 18 September. The album drops on a label better known for its podcast and DIY ethos than big marketing. For a band this meticulous about their sound, that pairing makes sense.