SUSS’s last album, 2024’s Birds & Beasts, saw them tighten up the sprawling nature of their 2022 self-titled double album to seven songs, two of which hit over ten minutes in length. Counting Sunsets turns the screw again, with ten songs, mostly three to four minutes in length. Here, the New York trio further distils its sound, allowing plenty of space between the instrumentation, giving the music a lighter character and an elegant delicacy that balances ambience with Americana.
This is evident in songs like lead single Sunset II, which sees Bob Holmes’ sparsely picked, reverby acoustic guitar line combine with Pat Irwin’s synths and piano and Jonathan Gregg’s pedal steel, to at once give the sound intimacy while suggesting an expansive landscape. Even lighter is Sunset VIII, a slowly played, piano-led piece with tendrils of pedal steel and subtle loops in the background. It’s a beautifully meditative song, with the guitar notes played slightly quicker than the piano, giving the music a loose, textured feel.
Elsewhere, the lightness of sound is mixed with more muscle on songs like Sunset IV, which features a slightly distorted guitar line that adds to swirls of pedal steel, giving the music more heft. The addition of harmonica here brings a wonderful, ethereal and almost surreal air to the music, with an undertone of disquiet.
The steel guitar at the core of Sunset IX blends well with the electronics and again (as I often feel with this band) brings up suggestions of Andrew Tuttle, another great performer of what SUSS coined as ‘ambient country’ music. This balance is present again on Sunset III, but with Holmes’ tape loops bringing a real oddness to the music. The super spare guitar sits alongside gentle pedal steel and synths, with the loops adding a niggle to the sound, a little worry that changes the dynamic and skilfully brings a suggestion of unease to the sound. Ace.
Counting Sunsets is a beautifully deliberate album that is unafraid to move at its own pace, as the title would perhaps suggest. The music this trio plays is an intricate fusion of Americana ingredients and electronic soundscapes, and this is their finest, most fully realised expression of it yet. A beautifully cohesive album that allows plenty of space between the notes, Counting Sunsets is a lesson in minimalism from a band with the most delicate and discerning of touches.
Counting Sunsets (May 15th, 2026) Northern Spy Records
Bandcamp: https://suss.bandcamp.com/album/counting-sunsets