PA-based indie rock outfit Sun Not Yellow has made a habit of applying their own distinct sensibilities to a wide array of styles since their 2017 inception, and their latest single “Younger Me” is the perfect microcosm of their melting pot mentality. This latest offering sees the group adding Dawes-esque folk rock to their genre grab-bag, organically touched with the idiosyncrasies that make the group stick out from a multitude of others operating in the same, heavily saturated sphere.
For all its unique touches, though, “Younger Me” doesn’t shy away from embracing certain indie folk archetypes. A warm, tastefully overdriven guitar of the exact sort that one might expect to hear on, say, an Alabama Shakes track sits center stage, sharing dominance with the song’s rich, full-bodied lead vocal and its ruminations on bygone youth. Some subtle, reverb-lavished harmonies give a sense of space to the affair, grounded by a a robust rhythm section.
It’s in that rhythm section, however, where the band’s individuality really starts to shine through – pun fully intended. Just before one can get too comfortable with the song’s inviting atmosphere, all of those other trappings drop out in the span of a second to make room for a punchy, heavily percussive pre-chorus, there and gone just as soon as it arrived. The song as a whole is bookended by a trippy, sampled introduction at one end and and a post-guitar solo EQ washout on the other. Sun Not Yellow uses these and other understated, pleasantly surprising breaks from the paradigm to inject an already strong piece of songcraft with their own singular voice.