Gifts, may prove to be the most earnest quintessence of the uncompromisingly guarded yet wholly collaborative nature of Sun Hotel’s songwriting. Suffusing every guitar string, bass rattle and whisper with wave after wave of echo-imbued reverb, in-house living room recording prodigy Ross Farbe manages to balance the pop leanings of the album’s infectious hooks with deafening walls of white noise while the concussive rhythms of their multi-percussion setup create a chaotic rumble throughout. Elsewhere, the bass and lead guitar tandem of John St. Cyr and Alex Hertz, respectively, overlay each track’s epic structure with a thick, warm tone equal parts nostalgia and melancholy as Scurlock wistfully sings of a subject matter that charmingly belies the raucous, visceral thrill of a live Sun Hotel experience. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.