Sunglasz Vendor – Break Glass

A year ago, Sunglasz Vendor’s debut Unwinding suggested a band content to explore lengthy post-rock builds and ‘90s-indebted slacker-rock. Break Glass feels like a deliberate fracture of that approach. The title track opens with the declaration “Break glass and sort of run away,” and from there the Bristol trio rarely stays in one place—or one tempo—for long.

Songwriter Rafi Cohen (Bingo Fury), bassist Eve Rosenberg (Ex Agent), and drummer Finn Hodgson (GRANDCHILD) each bring distinct underground impulses, and this time they allow those differences to collide rather than settle. The result is unpredictable post-hardcore: melodies threaten to collapse, jangly chords combust into blown-out distortion, and Cohen’s scream-shout yelps add a panicked physicality. “Combustibility Ratings” jolts between breakneck percussion and spindly feedback, while “Guilty Pleasure” channels frustration about keeping up with music trends and gatekeepers into dense, math-rock riffs.

There’s a thematic through line: modern compulsion, validation, toxic communication. On “I’ll Do to You Yourself,” sparkly arpeggios are repeatedly interrupted by colossal dissonance, mirroring a relationship that mixes like oil and water. “Smallest Violin” turns the titular idiom into a frantic sprint about self-sabotaging speech. Throughout, the band harnesses steep emotional fluctuations with a start-stop intensity that never lets the listener settle.

Where Unwinding felt like four distinct musicians learning to coexist, Break Glass is the sound of them trusting the volatility that was always there. The record isn’t a comfortable listen, but it’s a convincing step from a group now more willing to risk falling apart than to play it safe.