The Brooklyn indie pop trio Sunflower Bean fuses rock and roll drive with dream pop warmth to shape a style at once recognizable and distinctive. Early notices frequently linked them to outfits such as Blake Babies and Blondie, and the excitement surrounding their first album, Human Ceremony, in 2016 grew rapidly while they cultivated a following through dynamic performances on the road. Subsequent work revealed further growth, as they channeled pointed political themes into 2018’s Twentytwo in Blue before shifting toward a bold, ’90s-rooted alt-rock stance on 2022’s Headful of Sugar and the 2024 Shake EP.
Although Sunflower Bean officially assembled in 2013, the partnership between drummer Olive Faber and guitarist/vocalist Nick Kivlen dated back to informal high-school sessions that yielded little until the pair, then college freshmen, recruited bassist/vocalist Julia Cumming. With the trio complete, they emphasized the exchange between the two singers and performed nearly one hundred concerts across New York City within a single year. After issuing the 2015 EP Show Me Your Seven Secrets, they aligned with Fat Possum and prepared their debut full-length. During the summer of 2015 the members convened in Faber’s basement to refine material, then tracked the songs in a concentrated seven-day session alongside producer Matthew Molnar, previously of the indie pop group Friends. Human Ceremony appeared in early 2016, prompting a sustained run of live dates; that September the band delivered the four-song covers EP From the Basement, featuring renditions of songs by Neil Young, Modern Lovers, T. Rex, and Spiritualized.
Once touring commitments eased, Sunflower Bean turned to a follow-up album shaped by political concerns and the experience of coming of age amid instability. The group devoted an entire year to songwriting before returning to the studio with Molnar, now joined by co-producer Jacob Portrait of Unknown Mortal Orchestra. The resulting material adopted a more straightforward approach while incorporating classic rock and glam elements without relinquishing the debut’s youthful character. Issued in March 2018 on Mom+Pop, Twentytwo in Blue reached number 16 on Billboard’s Top Independent Albums chart.
In support of the album the band played Glastonbury, Leeds Festival, and Bonnaroo while sharing stages at various points with Interpol, the Kills, and Wolf Alice. They further broadened their palette on the 2019 EP King of the Dudes, produced by Justin Raisen and informed by edgy ’80s punk and new wave. The next year Cumming added vocals to Yves Tumor’s Heaven to a Tortured Mind. After a stretch of home-based recording prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Sunflower Bean unveiled their third album, Headful of Sugar, in 2022. Again working with Portrait and with Faber contributing engineering, the record highlighted a more refined fusion of ’90s alt-rock, typified by the smoldering single “Who Put You Up to This?” The group resurfaced in September 2024 with the four-track EP Shake, led by its scorching, guitar-driven title song.
