Static… and Silence: Exploring The Sundays’ last album.
Exploring The Sundays’ apparent goodbye to the music world.
Formed by college classmates turned lovers—vocalist Harriet Wheeler and guitarist David Gavurin—The Sundays appeared on the alternative rock scene in 1990. The release of their debut album, Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, was met with overwhelmingly positive feedback, peppered with comparisons to musical acts such as The Smiths and Cocteau Twins, and launched them to number four on the UK charts. With the addition of bassist Paul Brindley and drummer Patrick Hannan, the band spent the next year on a promotional tour and released their second album, Blind, in 1992. Wheeler and Gavurin decided to settle down and, in 1995, welcomed their daughter Billie. And on September 22, 1997, The Sundays released their third and seemingly final album, Static & Silence, which was less well-received than their previous two efforts but still hands-down my favorite Sundays album.
It seems that The Sundays’ five-year hiatus allowed them to foster and showcase their musical maturity while retaining their signature sound. Gavurin’s guitar work is integral to the dreamy feeling of the album, while Wheeler’s clear, ethereal vocals evoke a range of emotions and Brindley and Hannan’s instrumentation tie the whole work together. From tracks about grief and the passage of time, such as “Cry,” to a child’s account of the moon landing in “Monochrome,” The Sundays beautifully capture the human condition in Static & Silence.
The album opens with “Summertime,” the album’s first single. Its funky guitar riffs and horns distract from the lyrics, which take a jab at the “mythic picture of romance” that Gavurin criticized in a 1997 Billboard interview. After eighteen seconds of Gavurin’s beautiful guitar work, Wheeler poses the question, “Do some people wind up with the one that they adore?” She follows this question with positive imagery, a heart-shaped hotel room, and an unpopped bubble reaching new heights, symbolizing the picture-perfect love many people crave. Then, she rephrases her question as “Do some people wind up with the one that they abhor?” and goes on to describe a relationship as “a distant hell hole room, third world war.” Still, the chorus speaks of, “You and me in the summertime / … hand in hand down in the park.” As the chorus is sung for the last time, though, Wheeler adds, “Or have I read too much fiction?/ Is this how it happens?” bringing herself back to reality.
Track two, “Homeward,” is a refreshing return to the melancholy sound of The Sundays. Wheeler sings about losing someone close to her and struggling to grasp how to handle life alone. She wants her lost love to know how they’ve hurt her, but she is not able to express herself. Instead, like a “butterfly in the wind,” she will drift on homeward, healing along the way.
“Folk Song” starts off slow and steady, feeling like a lazy summer day. Tinged with nostalgia and innocence and chock-full of natural imagery, it represents our singer moving towards new beginnings as she “[climbs] higher” and “moves towards the fire,” encouraging the sun to continue blazing. The outro reminds us of the harsh reality of life as Wheeler paints a picture of a “pale fading sun” as the day, as all things must, comes to an end. The band dedicates the last minute to a soft, dreamy instrumental.
We are quickly ushered into “She” with a fast-paced beat, kept in time by a snap. Wheeler sings of a girl weakened and silenced by her relationship. She’s in an “adolescent war,” escaping her struggles with music. She blends into the crowd but loses herself, and does not realize until she takes the time to slow down. As the song ends, we are left wondering, “Has the music gone / Or has she stayed too long?”
Vivid imagery is a strong suit of this album, and “When I’m Thinking About You” is no stranger to it. The dreamy chords coupled with Wheeler’s description of the “beat of a bass drum” and a “river of raincoats” make for an entrancing start to the song. Wheeler then proclaims that she hopes she never wakes up when she’s thinking about her partner. The imagery becomes more vibrant and colorful following this proclamation, taking us into the singer’s daydream. At this point, she pleads to dream for a little while longer, suggesting that she and the person she’s singing about do not have a good relationship in reality—or that they may not even be together at all. She then sings “When you’re searching for pleasure / How often, pain is all you find.” Maybe she asks too much of her partner, or they are not good for each other. Whatever the situation may be, she would rather stay with the partner she created in her head than return to their reality.
A playful, almost mystical melody opens “I Can’t Wait,” a song about time passing the singer by. Several times, she declares that she “can’t wait forever.” Wheeler reflects on how waiting for something or someone far away can take a toll on a person, and when “flowers decay” and “there’s more in your head / Than you find in your life, it calls for a change.” She acknowledges the time she’s wasted, but desires a change and will no longer wait.
The album's second single, “Cry,” explores grief and the passage of time. The singer starts with a scene of her at a train station. She boards and watches the trees roll back. She sings to a person long gone. “You gave me so much / And now it’s of the earth / And it makes me cry.” Wheeler’s vocals are haunting as she repeats, “[a]nd it makes me cry,” three more times. The next verse gives us insight into how much time has passed since her loved one has returned to the earth. She keeps a framed picture of them and thinks of their voice every day, clinging to the worldly memories she can. Wheeler says “You’re with me so much / Though you’re never with me anymore / And it makes me cry,” driving home this person’s importance and how she does not push away her grief but instead allows herself to miss them and feel her emotions.
“Another Flavour” changes the mood at breakneck speed. A catchy rock riff similar to that of “How Soon Is Now” by The Smiths accompanies Wheeler as she sings about the fast-paced and ever-changing modern world. The first word, fashion, is repeated several times and works as a perfect example of how things fade. “They taste another flavour / And pretty soon you’re gone.” She mentions a lover who cannot make up his mind, and fairweather friends, and encourages the listener to not “let them crack you” and do what they want because the world will change regardless.
Next up is “Leave This City,” one of my favorite songs on the album. The band circles back to the nostalgic theme that is sprinkled throughout the album. Wheeler paints a picture of a town that the subject of the song grew up in. She speaks of writing on the wall that has been painted over and a boarded-up cinema, the removal of things that made the town special. The subject has outgrown their hometown, and it’s time to leave. The song is relatable, letting the listener know that it’s okay to take the good parts of your town and let them remain a part of you, but when it no longer serves you, you must leave.
The Sundays are big fans of giving their saddest lyrics their happiest beats, and “Your Eyes” fits this criteria to a tee. Wheeler speaks to a partner whose “eyes have lost their shine,” backed by a folk-like melody. The instrumentals separating each verse are so playful that they completely distract you from the failing relationship at hand in the lyrics.
“So Much” is the band’s critique of human greed and perpetual dissatisfaction. Wheeler remarks on how “you want so much and then you want some more” and calls the subject a slave to their desire. She says, “You’d just love what you can’t possess / You know it’s out there somewhere,” implying that this person will keep searching for something to fulfill their ever-growing appetite, an impossible task.
The penultimate track, “Monochrome,” is my favorite song from the album, as well as the inspiration for its cover. It details Wheeler’s viewing of the moon landing in 1969. She invites us into the memory of her and her sister creeping downstairs past their bedtime to watch history be made. The music is simple, and Wheeler’s vocals are the main focus. She croons about the “static and silence and a monochrome vision,” eventually broken by “a voice from above.” The language used is a reminder that this is being told from a child’s perspective, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin “dancing around” like “slow puppets” on “silver ground.” Her childlike curiosity shines through once again when she asks, “Oh, will they fly or will they fall?” The song ties together all of the themes of the album—nostalgia, reflection, relationships, and change—into a neatly wrapped four-minute and fourteen-second package.
As much as I love Static & Silence, I could only listen to it so many times before I scoured the internet searching for any piece of Sundays content I could get. I listened to The Sundays’ three albums in chronological order and, like many others, could not believe that after 1995, the band had gone radio silent. That is, until April 2014.
American Way, American Airlines' inflight magazine, scored an interview with Wheeler and Gavurin where they revealed that they had never stopped making music. When asked about a reunion, though, the pair replied, “First let’s see if the music we’re currently writing ever sees the light of day, and then we can get on to the enjoyable globe-trotting-meets-concert-planning stage." Most recently, a podcast released in August of 2020, revealed that they’d even had Hannan do some drumming on a few tracks.
I’m not sure if it’s just a delusion, but I am still holding out hope that The Sundays will eventually release new music. After you check out Static & Silence, I’m sure you will too.
edited by Alyssa Manthi.
album artwork believed to belong to either the publisher of the work or the artist.