Suneaters Go Big: 'Heroic Dose' and the Art-Rock Long Game
Twenty-three songs across four sides of vinyl is not a record you make to chase a playlist. It's a record you make because you have something to get out of your system and a label patient enough to let you. That's what Suneaters have done with Suneaters V: Heroic Dose, a double LP out June 19 on Lawrence's Lotuspool Records — and on Friday, July 10, the Kansas City/Lawrence outfit brings it to an early show at the Replay Lounge in Lawrence, a half-hour east of the capital.
For anybody in Topeka who has followed regional art rock, Suneaters are a known quantity in the best way: over a decade of psychedelic, space-tinged, smartass-sincere songwriting that never quite lands where you expect. Heroic Dose sprawls on purpose — abstract electronics bleeding into straight-ahead guitar, improvisation, punk speak, stoner grooves, and, per the label, a streak of political ferocity that the band apparently couldn't sit on. The group was reportedly already deep into these songs while their 2022 record Suneaters IV: Absinthe Makes The Heart Grow Fingers was still turning up on year-end lists.
The July 10 release show is a proper regional bill. Suneaters headline the 6 p.m. early slot at Replay, joined by Heidi Gluck and Lawrence's reliably excellent power-pop trio The Harrisonics — one of those bands, as the local roundups keep insisting, that simply never misses. It's the kind of night that reminds you the Topeka–Lawrence–KC triangle functions as one connected ecosystem when the bands make the drive, which they do far more readily than the crowds do.
That's the "why this matters" part, and it cuts close for Topeka. A double album on a long-running independent label, released the way Suneaters released it — no algorithmic hand-holding, just a decade-plus of showing up — is a working model for how a regional band builds something durable in a market that doesn't reward flash. Topeka acts trying to figure out whether it's worth pressing vinyl or just uploading another single could do worse than watch how a band with actual staying power operates.
Is Heroic Dose a lot to digest in one sitting? Absolutely. That appears to be the point — you're meant to take it in doses. Start Friday, in a room in Lawrence, standing up, while the band is still in front of you.
Sources: Album premiere — Suneaters V: Heroic Dose (The Fire Note); NE Kansas Weekend Roundup Jul 10–12 (Dystopeka); Suneaters V: Heroic Dose (Bandcamp)