Press

What They're Saying....

"You can expect a heavy and different mix of Desert Rock, Stoner Rock and top-heavy Psychedelic Space Rock sounds. It’s quite an original sound in places. As I haven’t heard many Desert Rock bands merging Psychedelic Space Rock together.

The result is quite exciting with the opening song Sons Of Belial – offering a convincing style of loud riffs and passionate vocals. The music is drenched in heavy FUZZ sounds and the Desert/Stoner Rock elements only draw you into Sundrifter’s world. The band is comprised of three musicians and takes up the classic “power-trio” route. Though are some parts of the album where the band sounds like they have more members.

The vocals have that classic Desert/Stoner rock vibe with Craig's vocals taking influence from the legendary vocalists from the Stoner Metal scene over the last twenty five years or so. Visitations has nine tracks in total and every one of them simply sound fantastic. Songs such as: Death March, Lightworker, Targeted, Till You Come Down, Sky Peoples Son and Fire In The Sky offering the heaviest and exciting parts of the album.

I didn’t really want to do a song by song review as the album flows brilliantly and naturally throughout. It feels like that the band created one epic song but split into nine individual chapters. The lyrics are superb throughout as well. With Sundrifter putting a lot of thought and effort into the overall context of the lyrics.

Though it’s the music that’s the main attraction here. As Sundrifter create an exciting sound that will appeal to fans of Kyuss, QOTSA, Fu Manchu, Truckfighters and fellow Boston riffsters – Summoner.

Visitations production is superbly realised and handled from start to finish. The mixture of different sounds that Sundrifter possess here will surely help them gain a bigger audience within the Psych/Desert/Stoner Rock spectrum. I’m hoping this album is given the respect it deserves and be given a Vinyl Release in the future. I’ve heard so many good albums this year so far and I’m happy to state now that Visitations will end up as one of the best Stoner Rock/Metal albums I’ll hear this year.

Visitations is simply a must have album and one that you will be listening to for a very long time come.

Excellent and Highly Recommended."

Words by Steve Howe (Outlaws of the Sun) FULL ARTICLE

Till You Come Down Single release/review 

“Till You Come Down” is the second track to be released ahead of Boston trio Sundrifter‘s sophomore full-length. The yet-unnamed follow-up to 2016’s Not Coming Back is still being put together, but listening to the spacious riffing and rampant melody at work in this cut and in “Death March,” which preceded it earlier this year, as well as yet-to-surface rough mixes of stompers like the eight-minute “Fire in the Sky” or the Torche-style thrust of “Light Worker,” one can get an immediate sense of why they’d be eager to start getting their material out there. Fueled by catchy structures and the soaring vocals of guitarist Craig Puera, who is joined in the band by bassist Paul Gaughran and drummer Patrick Queenan, the affect of Sundrifter is to blend grounded craftsmanship with otherworldly themes, outward-reaching echoes, and a rhythmic push that remains fervent despite the pace of an individual song.

For example, Gaughran‘s bass-heavy intro to “Till You Come Down,” matched soon with Queenan‘s thudding toms and the opening riff from Puera, doesn’t seem to be in any hurry, but within 30 seconds, the three-piece are digging into the first verse, and in short order from there, Puera is delivering the title-line in a hook that’s derived in part from Soundgarden-style soul but still retains a thicker underpinning in its tonality. “Death March,” which is perhaps fuzzier in the guitar and dreamier in its transitions through sustained echoes, carries a like-minded modernity-in-a-blender feel, but even in unfinished form, it’s clear Sundrifter put a decided emphasis on songwriting and creating a sense of place in their tracks — even if that place is only intended to be “somewhere else.”

Like Not Coming Back before it, Sundrifter‘s new offering was recorded by Dan Schwartz at Futura Productions in Massachusetts. The band is currently seeking a label to get behind the release and it’s hard to imagine they’ll have trouble finding one once the record is completed, given a title, artwork, and so on. What we can know right now from hearing pieces like “Till You Come Down,” “Death March,” the more desert-minded “Hammer Burn” and others is that the songs are there, and that’s the best starting point a band could ask for going into any new release. Once that’s down, the rest tends to take care of itself.

On the player below, you’ll find the premiere of “Till You Come Down,” as well as some comment from the band. I’ve also gone ahead and included an embed for “Death March” at the bottom of this post in case you’d like to dig further and get a side-by-side from one single to the next. “Death March” can be downloaded name-your-price-style and I wouldn’t be surprised if sooner or later Sundrifter posted “Till You Come Down” in similar fashion, so keep an eye out. And when I hear more about the album coming together, I’ll post accordingly."

   -JJ Koczan (The Obelisk) August 2017 FULL ARTICLE

Live Review from Obriens Allston MA 6-01-17

"The band before them was Sundrifter which turned out to be a psychedelic group from Boston. They were spacey sounding but heavy at the same time. They describe themselves as a, “three piece desert/stoner rock ‘n roll band.” The set seemed to slowly build. Then it became apparent where the desert part of the description came in, it was in Craig Peura’s vocals. They became captivating as each song cast a spell. He has a high register voice and he shoots it up and sustains it with Middle Eastern flavored inflections. (Remember Dick Dale’s Miserlou as an early example of Middle Eastern music influence in rock.) That on top of the busy rhythm section made for a singular sound. It’s a smart move to hone in on this one style and carve out a niche.

It turns out vocalist Craig has a degree in music from UMass Lowell. He’s had four years classical singing training in several languages. He uses all that with traditional rock influences the uppermost being Chris Cornell. They played with red floodlights which combined with O’Brien’s red curtain backdrop made the stage look like Twin Peaks' Dream Room. You can hear what we describe on their Bandcamp page or above in the video where we captured a song that has those vocals in it."

-Paul Blowfish (Boston Groupie News) FULL ARTICLE

"You Heard This Album"

Kev and Drop D breakdown and review Visitations song by song. Aired on Undiscovered Rock Radio