SUSS continues to play the role in my life that it has since I first heard them in the chaotic days of the first Trump presidency. Their by now patented brand of Ambient Americana soothes, calms, focuses and occasionally unsettles. The New York based trio has by now released a half dozen acclaimed albums and many EPs, all of them exploring in slightly different ways the emotional resonance they find in the landscapes of the desert Southwest.
SUSS is three veteran musicians: Pat Irwin (guitarist for the B-52s among others) on guitars, keyboards, harmonium, synths, autoharp; Bob Holmes on guitars, harmonica, synths, tape loops; and Jonathan Gregg on pedal steel guitar.
Counting Sunsets is maybe their most focused recording yet, 10 tracks that are relatively short for the genre, almost all well under five minutes, exploring related yet subtly different moods. And it’s very relatable — everyone’s seen and marveled at a sunset, right?
Strummed or arpeggiated acoustic guitar chords, shimmering heat waves of synthesizer haze, and the distinctive metallic wail and moan of the pedal steel are the common elements throughout. The details lend color and texture and heighten moods. The harp-like strums of the autoharp lend a poignancy to “Sunset VI” ‘s sense of lethargic melancholy. The slow-motion harmonica riff on “Sunset VII” adds a whiff of campy spaghetti western homage to the languid phased pedal steel and droning synth. “Sunset X” with its reiterated acoustic piano arpeggios, is a reminder of this music’s partial roots in minimalism.
Perhaps most notable is “Sunset II,” the album’s first single, which has a more definite rhythmic pulse than just about anything SUSS has ever recorded. It’s a bold semi-departure (although “Sunset IX” also flirts with similar but less pronounced rhythmic synth pulses), was the final piece recorded in the sessions that produced Counting Sunsets, and it’s become emblematic of it in an unexpected way. Whether it signals a new direction, we’ll see. For now, we have a beautiful album of sonic miniatures that, like a watched sunset, glow and grow, shift and fade each in its own unique way.
(Northern Spy, 2026)
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