There’s something oddly heroic about making a full album yourself. Not in the “isolated genius reinventing music in their bedroom” mythos; more like the quiet, stubborn determination of someone who’s decided that yes, actually, they will play all the instruments, write every track, produce the entire thing, and do it without relying on the usual plug-ins that turn people into uncanny valley choirs of overcompressed perfection. That’s Ben Sinclair. And his new album, Sunrise Sunset, is the sonic equivalent of that emotionally unstable friend who shows up at your door with snacks and a full day’s worth of feelings—and by the end of it, somehow, you feel seen.
The premise is deceptively simple: one day, in album form. It starts in the morning, builds through the chaos of the afternoon, and winds down into the kind of night where everything feels like it means more than it probably does. If that sounds dangerously close to someone’s scrapped senior thesis, Ben Sinclair actually pulls it off so worry not. Unlike most “concept albums” that duct-tape plot points to interludes and call it a journey, Sunrise Sunset has actual vibe discipline. The mood shifts without a signal flare. One moment you’re fine, the next you’re rewatching the mental slideshow of all your worst decisions set to a minor chord progression. Again.
“Sunrise,” the opener, is warm and suspiciously calm; like something out of an A Great Big World deep cut where the optimism isn’t ironic yet. It’s too inviting. It feels like a trap. But that’s part of its charm: the brief illusion of peace before everything, inevitably, becomes a lot. Then “Turning It Around” strolls in; not exactly a power anthem, not a breakdown, just a musical negotiation. It’s that weirdly peppy, mid-crisis realization that maybe things aren’t totally doomed yet. Think the kind of emotional math early Twenty One Pilots were scribbling out during the Regional at Best era; delicate, messy, and more effective than it has any right to be.
Next comes “Lauren,” the album’s lone collab moment, where a guest guitarist drops in like someone who showed up late but somehow still brought the right mood. The track is restrained, measured, and quietly aching, like a Grouplove song with all the glitter scraped off, leaving just the heartbeat underneath. It’s wistful without being dramatic, emotionally precise without oversharing. There’s a sweetness here, but it’s got edge. Like a smile right after a sigh.
By the time “Fading Out of View” shows up, everything’s a little blurry; in a way that feels intentional. You’re no longer wrestling with the chaos; you’re drifting through the aftershock, like the part of an Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros song where the commune has gone quiet and someone’s finally alone with their thoughts. But unlike Edward Sharpe’s wide-eyed anthems about love and freedom, this song trades exuberance for grand, choral catharsis. The lyrics don’t reach for clarity; they feel like confessions mumbled into a cracked phone mic. The arrangement scales back like it’s tiptoeing out of the room as they climb higher, like it’s going to let go by the end.
And finally, there’s “Sunset.” The closer. The exhale. Not to spoil the surprise, but at a certain point, it arrives with a burst of Cage The Elephant-style bombast; drums pounding, guitars roaring, a sonic release that feels like shaking off the weight of the whole day. If “Sunrise” was optimism, “Sunset” is the full-throttle reckoning, the emotional climax where everything you’ve held in suddenly comes crashing out. But even in its intensity, it’s honest, not overblown for show. It doesn’t try to neatly resolve the album’s tension; instead, it embraces the chaos and lets the noise be the catharsis, a fiery goodbye that’s both messy and strangely uplifting.
More than anything, Sunrise Sunset is a testament to sheer creative stubbornness; the kind that doesn’t just write the songs, but learns every instrument to play them, teaches itself the ins and outs of production from scratch, and refuses to hide behind digital shortcuts. Ben Sinclair didn’t just make an album. Actually, he built it, piece by piece, from the ground up. Every guitar strum, every drum hit, every keyboard layer? That’s him. So is the mixing. So is the production. There’s no invisible team behind the curtain smoothing out the edges. And that’s exactly why the edges matter.
This isn’t a novelty gimmick; it’s the core of the album’s DNA. The one-man-band approach isn’t just impressive, it’s essential to how the record feels: personal, human, unfiltered. You can hear the hours. You can feel the learning curve baked into the tracks. It’s not about being flashy or virtuosic, it’s about caring enough to do it all yourself, not because it’s easy, but because the result means more that way. And it does.
Sunrise Sunset by Ben Sinclair isn’t pitching this album as the second coming of indie. He’s not asking for your awe. He’s just hoping it lands. And it does. Not with grandeur or bombast, but in the kind of way that makes you pause halfway through doing the dishes and say, “Wait… damn.” Sunrise Sunset isn’t profound because it demands to be; it’s profound because it doesn’t. It’s real. And really good to boot.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for publications in the US and former lead writer of Atop The Treehouse. Reviews music, film and TV shows for media aggregators.
