With the release of 2019’s Foreign Bodies, 2022’s Subterranea and 2024’s Regular Nature, Calgary-based JOVM mainstays Sunglaciers — founding duo Evan Resnik (vocals, guitar, synths, piano, sampling) and Mathieu Blanchard (drums, percussion, production) along with Nyssa Brown (vocals, guitar) and Kyle Crough (bass) — have firmly cemented a sound that blurs the boundaries between polished melodicism and opaque experimentation, auspicious romanticism and unbridled descent. Though anchored in the strange realties of our time, their sons are laced with a certain optimism through well-placed and well-calculated psych elements and vibrant rhythms.
The Calgary-based outfit’s highly-anticipated fourth album, Spiritual Content is slated for a March 27, 2026 release through Mothland. The album reportedly sees the band further exploring the chiaroscuro depths of post-punk while simultaneously setting out to redefine their sound. Thematically, the album explores modern day life through allegorical songwriting, elevated by genuinely catchy melodies, resolute arrangements and stylish production.
Over the course of its breakneck 35-minute run, the album’s indie rock-meets-post-punk-tinged, nine songs reportedly captured fleeting yet endearing moments in time, their narrative bent, twisted and distorted into expansive and highly evocative soundscapes. The album is meant to layout like a psychedelic sequence where grooves dance and wiggle in and out, awaking feelings of wonder and awe, while also trigging emotions like bewilderment, fear and alienation.
The album sees Resnik and Blanchard turning to their bandmates Brown and Brougham along with acclaimed producer and multi-instrumentalist Chad VanGaalen (synths, vibraphone, electric piano and additional production) to flesh out the album’s material. The band also continued their collaborations with mixing/mastering engineer Mark Lawson and former Besnard Lakes‘ Richard White, who took on vinyl mastering duties.
Spiritual Content‘s first single “Eye to Eye” is a Freedom of Choice-era Devo-inspired motorik ripper featuring woozy synths, skittering and booming drums, squiggling guitars paired with Resnik’s punchy, almost California punk rock-like delivery before shifting into a towering cacophonous storm of feedback and a gentle, seemingly exhausted fade out.
“The song is about how we all have more in common with each other than we think, and how the small differences between us have been magnified to stoke division through social media and media in general,” Sunglaciers’ Evan Resnik explains. “I used a lot of old footage/movies/propaganda to showcase both our creative and destructive capabilities. There’s a lot of sped up footage, reversed sequences, and pretty flower timelapses. Sometimes it feels like we’re racing to our inevitable demise; we have to slow down and take a step back. There’s still time to recover and progress together, but it’s getting a bit late in the game, you know?”