I first caught Sheffield five piece The Suncharms some 25-plus years too late… or so I thought at the time. That was at the Continental in Preston, an early 2017 comeback show when they opened for Wessex indie legends The Chesterfields, my reason for being there, and Glasgow cult heroes The Orchids, who it’s fair to say stole the show, an impassioned legion of fans from across the border ensuring a special night.

But those were important step-ups for the bands on earlier that night, and when I caught them again in September 2019 at Night and Day in Manchester, they’d both come on a storm after that long lay-off. You can guess the next part of the story, and within a few months we were all back to square one, confined to quarters. It went viral… and not in a good way. But as it turned out, that time for reflection ultimately led to great records from all three bands on that 2017 bill in Lancashire.

As it was, a year before my first sighting, The Suncharms – now as then featuring tambourine-toting Marcus Palmer (vocals), Matt Neale (guitar), John Malone (guitar), Richard Farnell (bass) and Chris Ridley (drums) – released a retrospective self-titled LP on CD for Cloudberry /Records amassing their 1990/91 output, its 14 tracks including two 12″ EPs for Wilde Club Records, compilation tracks and previously unreleased songs. And since then, they’ve ploughed on… to great effect.

The first fruits of their recording return came with Rolling Meadows, Illinois based label Sunday Records for Distant Lights in August 2021, described by publicist Simon Heavisides as ‘a souped-up take on a classic indie album with a sprinkle of shoegaze around the edges and just enough of their own idiosyncratic touches.’

And they’ve remained busy between the day jobs, releasing Things Lost in October 2023 and now Darkening Sky, which has had a fair few plays at WriteWyattUK HQ this past week or so (I know, it came out in April, but it’s been hectic, right?), your scribe well and truly enjoying a grand offering from a band that’s come on leaps and bounds during its second wave.

Nine years ago, I described them live as Bobby Gillespie fronting The Wedding Present, and there remain elements of that, that Magic Carpet and Spaceship still at their command. But there’s far more to this group once lazily labelled part of that whole shoegaze indie scene (I saw a few of those bands in the early ‘90s, including Ride, Slowdive and Lush, but it wasn’t the right time for me – I was more comfortable going back to the source influences, from The Velvet Underground to Cocteau Twins and The Jesus and Mary Chain), the sum of their wider influences down the years clearly having made a mighty impression on their 2020s output.

As Simon Heavisides put it on the sleeve notes for the new record, ‘Their second act has also been a determined case of dealing with unfinished business. Once a band with no albums to their name, they now release their third in five years. Darkening Sky comes with a real sense of making every second count, another motivation that often comes with age. Recorded and mixed by guitarist Matt, the whole album is alive with a sense of wonder. The sound is spacious and organic, and instruments are given room to breathe.’

I can’t argue with that, and from wholesome yet wistfully lonesome opener ‘Midnight Train’ onwards I’m hooked, the incoming shades of melodic guitar pop suggesting they’d have fitted in nicely out there on the road with early REM, Rain Parade and fellow Paisley Underground exponents back in the day.

There’s certainly a nod to that Eighties scene, but perhaps all the more so to original Sixties psych trippers like The Beatles and the Velvets. I also see and hear a band that could have comfortably rubbed shoulders with the later Orange Juice then followed Edwyn Collins’ path from there, as accentuated by the brass touches on the new LP opener. The same goes for second track ‘Annabel Lee’, perhaps a glimpse of where The Soup Dragons might have gone next, Marcus’ ‘roar of the ocean’ confirmation that they’ve ventured slightly further west than Ladybower Reservoir down the years.

There are also plenty of places where the Notorious Byrd Brothers or maybe Mike Nesmith spring to mind, their label’s US links seemingly all it needed to bring out those elements, not least on songs like ‘Stone Tape Rewind’, which shuffles along like a country rock ‘My Sweet Lord’. And that’s a good thing, by the way.

As for the added trumpet and subtle xylophone on next numbers ‘Monster To Me’ and ‘Air Raid Shelter’, it sounds like it was always meant to be there in the mix, albeit previously somehow lost in the arrangements amid that initial wall of sound. But I guess those influences should come as no real surprise seeing as this is clearly a collective with sharp ears, its members now somewhat long in the tooth students of their part-time art, those eclectic tastes poking through the cracks.

‘Diamonds’ to me gives a nod to classic post-punk/new wave Banshees, Cure, Teardrop Explodes and Vapors territory, before the band step into that more familiar fug of sound they were associated with on ‘1,000 Years’ and ‘Motorway Bridge’ (‘with real Sheffield motorway affects,’ Marcus tells me),  their ‘90s indie noise roots back to the fore, the four of them fresh as ever all these years on while truly fanning out their early, erm, primal appeal.

From there, they re-emerge with Orchids meets Super Furry Animals camp playfulness on ‘Interstellar’, their melodic, borrowed Sixties indie pop properties having coming out unscathed, the added brass bringing a little Love-esque Californian sunshine to their side of the Pennines.  

The golden days of choosing potential crossover chart singles have gone, but ‘Ferris Wheel’ has unlikely hit written on it, enough for me to imagine original Jesus and Mary Chain diehards reduced to waving lighters from side to side, albeit with the guitar touches in there as much Springfield as Sheffield and more Missouri than misery.

Speaking of Western influences (and we’re talking way further than West Yorkshire), ‘Winter Sun’s acoustic touches and orchestral framing suggest the spirit of Lee and Nancy has crept into the frame, leading us to the moment ‘A Snowstorm’ brings us home, albeit still in a more measured, understated, at one with themselves style.

As a case in point, Marcus never gets shouty, but he doesn’t have to, his voice more an accompaniment to those luscious melodies underpinned by sturdy and reliable bass and drums, the collective spirit more important, this 21^st century incarnation remaining as honest as before but now more subtle, as is the Suncharms’ … erm, sunny charm.

Darkening Sky by The Suncharms is available via Sunday Records’ Bandcamp page via this link and also from Vinyl Exchange in Manchester (CD and vinyl) and Sunday Records’ Chicago outlet.