SULK

Name: SULK
Based: London, UK
Listen: sulktheband.com
Similar to: The Stone Roses

With the imminent revival of all things 90’s, SULK couldn’t have come along at a better time within the 21st century. Infusing swirly guitars with baggy back beats and insouciant, reverberated vocals, oh so similar to either Ian Brown’s mastered studio incarnation or perhaps Damon Albarn through his 'Leisure' days.

Their debut single 'Wishes' was great, but 'Back In Bloom', the follow up was even more extraordinary for a band that just keep on getting better, through every live show and every insight into their forthcoming debut LP, set for release later this year. Having toured with contemporaries Towns and Born Blonde, the time has come for SULK to enjoy their moment in the spotlight, as their Madchester notion of baggy pop music is becoming more exposed to the masses. The future looks luminous for SULK and their homage to a better time. - This Is Fake DIY

"Sulk sound like all of the music that influenced us in the beginning of our band. It's like if Ian Brown put together a band with Graham Coxon on guitar, a drunk-ass Mani on bass and Catherine Wheel's drummer. We had them open for us in Manchester and I just had to go in the crowd to watch them." - NME

The Dandy Warhols’s ‘Bohemian Like You’ is a song which has been on my ‘indie’ playlist consistently since the late nineties, and since then it has been a song that I have wanted to see live, which is exactly what I go to do last night. Supported by Sulk in Manchester, they are currently on tour to promote their new album release This Machine (24/04/12).

Playing almost immediately after the doors to the Academy 2 opened were Sulk who, considering they’d been broken down on the side of the road about an hour before, put on an exceptional performance. With thrashing drums and 90s sounding guitar riffs running through their songs, Sulk are obviously the children of Britpop but they still very much manage to put their own stamp on the sound. They really soar on their upbeat songs like ‘Wishes’, a track which has that same hopeful and aspiring feel to it that those of The Stone Roses, Suede and The Charlatans did. They clearly managed to win over the audience with their ready-for-festivals sounding tunes.

Following Sulk’s set the venue really started to fill up with a largely older crowd. The Dandy Warhols have been around since the early 90s after all, and their consistent and steady stream of albums has won them and more importantly kept them a dedicated fan base over the years. That was absolutely evident by the level of anticipation in the air as the band took to the darkened stage.

Like any good Dandy Warhols song the gig built as it went on, starting off with solid crowd pleasing tunes and crescendoing into a force that sent the audience into a mosh pit whirling frenzy. Even though they played for 2 hours, this gig did not stall at any point in the middle, even for the slower ‘Every Day Should Be a Holiday’; it gained momentum and pace throughout the evening. Quirky and catchy in nature, their songs translate well on stage. The Dandy Warhols’ personalities match their style of music perfectly. It is not often you witness a band combine grunge with rock, dance and unabashed playfulness with such finesse.

The chatty and charming singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor endeared himself to the crowd with complete ease. His deep, growling voice is truly unique, in a live setting it is an absolute joy particularly on songs like ‘Not if you were the last junkie on earth’. His melodic harmonies are completely in sync with drummer Brent DeBoer. Zia McCabe’s dance beat-laden keyboard beats provided levels of experimentation that were unusual but very welcome, and they are one of the reasons this group cannot be pigeon-holed into one genre. They are dipping their feet into a few at once, and doing it well.

I came away from this gig thinking two things; firstly that The Dandy Warhols are a band who are unafraid to play with their sound even after being around for almost 20 years and secondly, they are a band who clearly still love playing their most popular tracks and it is those two qualities which make them pretty special to see live. - Gig Junkies

Sulk dominated with a sound that reeked of STONE ROSES, led by JON SUTCLIFFE who strutted about like a young BOBBY GILLESPIE. - The Sun

Luckily for Sulk, a much larger audience has turned up to witness their fine bowl cut hair-doos. Oh, and they're bloomin’ marvellous: the frontman’s frantic hair shakes along with their soaring, Stone Roses-esque psychedelic guitars. The crowd barely move a muscle, but you come to expect that from East London - shame. - Artrocker

Second on are SULK. Having operated as various incarnations over previous years, the band is finally ready for the big time. Inevitable comparisons can be made to The Stone Roses and pretty much most bands from the ‘Madchester’ era. But this isn’t a kind of nostalgic trip for when everyone was kitted up to the eyeballs in Adidas. Of course, there’s influence from the likes of The Charlatans, The Verve (pre-‘the’) and Ride, but there’s as much Beatles and Stones as there is Roses and Smiths to their jangly, euphoric britpop. Frontman Jon Sutcliffe oozes an effortless amount of cool, swaying to and from his mic stand continually throughout the energetic performance. Opening with recent single ‘Back in Bloom’, the 5-piece are loose enough to bring about a 70’s inspired groove, but tight enough to rein in 80’s baggy and 90’s britpop influences, to create a sonic quality that quite literally hasn’t been seen or heard in 15, perhaps 20 years. The melodies are soaring, all of which incorporate a visceral pop aspect to the music, the sort of thing that can open the music up to the window-cleaning white van man as much as it can an obsessive music lover like you or I. That’s the great thing about SULK; they reduce the sort of boundary between listeners that would usually cause those of a certain class to sniff and tut, claim it’s not ‘original’, or that it’s ‘too commercial’, whilst those of another class would simply shake their head, label it ‘pretentious’ and ‘not get it’. It’s not music to argue over. It’s neither ‘cool pop’, nor is it ‘lad rock’ It’s neither end of the musical scale. It cuts right down the middle, appealing to all types, which is so important AND lacking in today’s culture. There isn’t enough bravery in bands to make this kind of music; bold, upstanding, dance-able, anthemic, and most importantly: brilliant. ‘A Photograph of You’ has a real ‘(Song For My) Sugar Spun Sister’ quality, whilst the band happen to have a trilogy of songs (‘Flowers’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Wishes’) that would be The Stone Roses at their absolute fastest and finest, and that’s not hyperbole. But they encapsulate a whole new landscape of bands that combine this passion with the tunes that matter. They might not have done it first, but they are doing, and better than most. - H & H Magazine

Sulk -- Along with the Godfathers of Britpop, The Stone Roses are reuniting for a new album and world tour. The sound that dominated part of the world in the '90s may experience a renaissance thanks in part to a new generation of bands that were inspired by music that arrived a decade or so earlier. - The Huffington Post

For anyone who didn’t get tickets for The Stone Roses reunion, SULK could just fill that 90s void in your baggy, big-fringed life. Their new single ‘Back In Bloom’ is out on 21st November via Perfect Sound Forever. You can see the video for forthcoming single, ‘Back In Bloom’ below. - The Fly Magazine

Previously going by the name of "The Ruling Class" alike to the 1972 film of the same name SULK have their first two singles out under their new title. Their sound has not differed but their new writing seems to have just become stronger since their last single Sleeping Beauty.

Wishes is a strong single with a really “cute” guitar line that is the basis of the track, the chorus’s come in nicely with a nice thick backing vocals that really take you away defining it from the lighter Verses. The most impactful part of this song is the big change that hits out of nowhere 2 and half minutes in more lovely reverb covered backing vocals.

Back In Bloom is a track I have heard before live that is slower yet bigger sounding single with a constant guitar line that seems to pierce throughout this track mixed in with an interesting bass line and great drumming. Another interesting part of the song is the lead guitar lines playing throughout the chorus without getting in the way of the Vocal melody which give a listener that little more. - Ward Magazine

With its epic, stadium-indie guitars, baggy beats and trippy lyrics, this Suede-meets- Oasis number sets Sulk far above other 1990s revivalists. - The Independent

Under the rainy skies of London, the shining sounds of Britpop, Shoegaze and Psychedelia are back in bloom. Locked up in the back room of an east end gallery stirring up 90s inspired sonic harmonies, SULK’s influences are less worn on their sleeves, than branded on their hearts. Bands such as The Stone Roses, Suede, Ride and The Verve are wholly evident, but this isn't nostalgia for old time’s sake. It’s a whitewash of powerful prettiness; with sun-drenched vocals, ethereal guitars and pounding drums, rooted in 90s vibes but with its eyes to the future. - Fred Perry Subculture

Ready for nu-baggy? With The Horrors and Bombay Bicycle Club both gaining Roses/Mondays comparisons recently, it was only a matter of time before some new bands picked up the mantle too. Sulk, complete with a swirling, gurning debut video filmed in Ibiza, are leading that charge. - NME

Goddamn it’s cold. We’ve started progressively noticing more and more the so-called (because we call them this) Deniers who still insist on bopping around with their baps’n'flaps out, which in the nicest possible way means there are still people wandering around in temperatures no greater than the initial positive double digit figures that the wonderful celcius scale has to offer the UK right now in shorts, tshirts and tube-dress thingies. While we simply cannot help the mild degree of repulsion these funny fellows living in a world of their own instill into us (because they’re literally letting it ALL hang out, at least the ones that like to gravitate toward our person, and most of them resemble a cumberland sausage after knuckling it several times), we have just realised that actually “Deniers” is a pretty cool name for a band, so if you nick it, we’ll know about it and claim credit for everything you do from this point onwards in true music-industry-bastard-style. Back to the point, it is inferable, given our sporadic missions over the last year or so to assorted conurbations in the vacinity, that Northern-hailers SULK have seen their fair share of the same sort of scenes we’ve just been describing – we hear the night lifers from those parts do that on the reg. It is also inferable that SULK may just be able to capture that element of Brit-Pop revivalism that people kind of want to see, hear and live post-Oasis, but at the same time don’t want the likes of Viva Brother producing to that effect. Wishes visually and musically induces a more lean-effect than most releases since Stone Roses were also caught wandering along a beach-head almost 20 years ago, and conceptually delivers a similar vibe to how and when The Happy Mondays went abroad to record an album but instead ended up doing anything but that, and pulling all kinds of different shit instead. There’s also a sizable chunk of Suede and The Verve in there, but we’re not going as far as to say Charlatans because we may well have to punch ourselves if we did. Ultimately, this is a fine guitar track which stands out even more given the amount of chartable electronic-based music around right now. We’re just praying a certain British music publication doesn’t go making too big a deal out of it too early, lest they ruin it for everybody, which hopefully won’t be before a big-ass London show at the Hoxton Bar & Kitchen on the 31st October. - KILLING MOON LIMITED

Baggy. Is it back? The Horrors, Bombay Bicycle Club and Arctic Monkeys have all been accused (lauded? congratulated?) for employing the spirit of Reni/Bez/Barry Mooncult this year.

And it does seem like those accusations aren’t entirely unwarranted either – the psychedelic swirls of 'Shuffle', 'That's Where You're Wrong' and 'Still Life' do totally help themselves to more than a little dancing swagger.

Fair play then, to Sulk, who do it more blatantly than all of them, right down to the bowl cuts, white tops'n'loose chains combos, super-8 video app, NORTHERN guitar riffs, Ian Brown-aping frontman and tunes that go 'la la la' a lot. Personally I don't think there's a lot wrong with that, as long as you do it all well. And 'Wishes', their debut single, is pretty damn catchy if nothing else:

If I were Mani I might be wondering about support bands right now. And if I were in Sulk I'd be getting excited about what could just be around the corner. - NME

With a sound unmistakably reminiscent of 90’s shoegaze, Sulk have released a track that falls into the quintessential British alt-pop sound we all know and love. With a similar vibe rocked by the likes of the Stone Roses, Sulk have fallen into great company and whilst they are certainly not breaking any musical boundaries, they have skilfully replicated a classic sound that I for one am happy to re-live.

Wishes is a chilled track driven by ethereal guitars, simple vocal melodies and pummelling drums. Creating an almost dreamlike sound, this laid-back release is the perfect summer sound track for days reminiscing at the beach. - AAA Music

New UK band SULK offer up a strong debut with the track for “Wishes”. The tune, which sounds as if it could be an outtake from The Stone Roses s/t sessions (we mean that in the best possible way.), borrows heavily from the Madchester heyday of bands like The Roses, The Happy Mondays & Inspiral Carpets. SULK takes that classic sound and updates it with a more modern melodic and instrumental sensibility. - BLAHBLAHBLAHSCIENCE

‘Wishes’ is the euphoric, highly anticipated debut single from baggy revivalists: Sulk.

The track opens with an arpeggiated, shoegazey guitar riff that carries on throughout, screaming the word “Britpop” and sounding as though it belongs on either Blur’s Leisure or The Stone Roses’ Second Coming - purveying underneath Jonathan Sutcliffe’s wispy, insouciant vocals and a plodding drum beat; manifesting itself to sound all-in-all like an early 1990’s feel good summer anthem.

‘Wishes’ perfectly fits in with the recent brooding Britpop revival, such as the reunions of Pulp and Suede alongside the mainstream appeal and success of bands such as Brother and Beady Eye. Plus who knows, if sulk keep on writing and producing records to this standard there may even be a full on acid-house resurrection on the cards? - Counteract Magazine

Broccoli’s Band Of The Week is SULK and to be quite honest this could end up being Broccoli’s band of the year!

Unlike most bands you’re not going to be able to find out much about SULK online, you can’t listen to all their music on Myspace, Soundcloud, Facebook, Youtube or anywhere else, there is a mystery to SULK and and this transpires in their sound. Mix the Madchester Hacienda scene with 90's Brit Pop, pour into a 21st century glass and have a taste of SULK.

Their debut single ‘Wishes’ was filmed in Ibiza and was realeased on August 15th 2011 and is available as a limited editing 7?.

We listen to a lot of bands every week in the Broccoli office and when you come across a band as complete as SULK it’s like fireworks going off in your brain! - The Ladies Toilet

Right now if you asked me which band I’d most like to see live it would have to be Sulk.

On August 15th they released their debut single Wishes. The shimmering, almost psychedelic shoe-gazing sound conjures up warm images of diving into the deepest ocean or mirages in the desert. It’s a sound which is reminiscent of mid 80's to 90s brit-pop, with the opening guitar riff lending heavily from the likes of The Stone Roses and Suede and building feelings of familiarity from the offset even if it’s only your first listen. Rather than just being a simple revival of this sound however, Sulk’s is more of a fusion – with the bright Stone Roses-esque guitar being accompanied with loud almost grunge like drumming and reverb tainted vocals. I personally feel, that out of recent bands emulating the shoegaze sound, Sulk may be one of the few who can claim to have carved out a sound of their own.

Shot on a Super8 camera the video for Wishes is laden with feelings of dreamy nostalgia and wonder -taken together with the record it’s a pretty intoxicating package.

Be sure to check the Sulk site, for what they’re currently up to and more:
www.sulktheband.com - Tokyo Indie

The first thing that comes to mind during the first few bars of 'Wishes', the debut single from London's hot new trio SULK, is the clear Britpop influence, conjuring up thoughts of the warm summery optimism of the early 90's.

A simple guitar line put together with effectively punchy and well played drums sets up the tranquil rhythm well and leaves plenty of room for singer Jonathan's vocals to fill. And fill it they do, with a euphoric chorus that would make even the Gallagher brothers jealous.

When compared with other more recent outputs, such as Viva Brother, SULK offer far more than just personality. They actually have a debut interesting enough to be proud of. - This Is Fake DIY