The New York City-based outfit Suss has been extant for roughly a decade, starting as a quintet before trimming down to a trio lineup that’s remained in place since. Specializing in ambient country (their chosen descriptor) across a series of highly regarded full-length releases, their latest album is Counting Sunsets, its ten pieces offering exquisite, sunbaked, drifting resonances on LP, CD, and digital available May 15 through their label Northern Spy. This richly textured recording captures a band with an unusually heightened aptitude for cohesiveness honing a sound that’s organic and contemporary while lacking in clichés.
Suss is currently Jonathan Gregg on pedal steel and dobro, Bob Holmes on mandolin, baritone guitar, acoustic guitar, harmonica, violin, and keyboards, and Pat Irwin on electric guitars, National guitar, eBow, harmonium, keyboards, melodica, and loops. William Garrett departed the band in 2020, and Gary Leib passed away in 2021.
The two main elements in the style that this group has been steadily refining since debuting with Ghost Box back in 2018 are easy to recognize and absorb. The band can move with an exquisite graduality, reverberating with a calmness that fits pretty comfortably into the atmospheric, indeed ambient scheme of things, but without an overreliance on standard formal maneuvers.
On the other side of the equation, Suss’ country bona fides are rooted in the instrumentation listed above, but the playing is strengthened by a steadfast avoidance of hackneyed Americana-isms. By steering clear of excessive twang as a shortcut to mood infusion, the band is able to conjure up environments that are legitimately transportive.
All the while, Suss never succumbs to the grandiose. If one’s mind formulates some accompanying visions for these aural vistas, they are far more likely to resemble the sturdy graininess of B&W 16mm film than anything Ansel Adams-esque. This isn’t a calculated modesty but rather just an aesthetic intelligence that evolves naturally as part of the process.
Counting Sunsets radiates like a worn but sturdy paperback plucked from the shelves of a reliable second-hand shop located on a rustic out-of-the-way side street. It is a story in ten chapters, a short novel compiling ten Roman numerical sunsets, a cosmic tale lacking in any cartoonish far-out vibes. And when things get tranquil, it’s with the realism of dusk transpiring on the outskirts of town. It’s another fine release from a band doing it unlike anybody else.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
