Sunbreather (Sunbreather)

Greg Aramini
Dec 21
5 min read

Released: 2025

Genre: Psychedlic rock, Stoner rock

Sounds Like: Dead Meadow, King Buffalo

Homeland: Leeds, UK

What makes Sunbreather elite and sit atop OHMs Peak?

Sunbreather delivers a soothing mix of smooth Stoner rock blended with trippy psychedelia.
The vocals are quite relaxed and contribute a sense of comfort to the swirling stoner fuzz.
The production is spot on. Sunbreather possesses a studio homegrown quality that isn't overly polished, which truly enhances their sound.

Track Listing:

Foreglow 1:50
Apricity 10:57
Sunbreather 8:30
WINE 6:07
Reverie 1:34
Sleep 6:29
Aubade 8:00

Dive deeper into Sunbreather with our Q&A with the Sunbreather.

OHMs Peak: Your self-titled debut continues to lower our blood pressure each listen. Such calming beautiful heavy. Would love to hear more about your setting in making this album and how it came about?

Sunbreather: These songs came from a really dark time in my life and I think that's why they're so bright and full of hope, it was the message that I needed to hear. One song that didn't make it to the album had the lyric "Forget happiness, give me hope", and I think that sums up where I was at. This was before I transitioned and my partner was living thousands of miles away, so writing was all I had to keep me going. Apricity and Sunbreather were the first tracks I wrote, originally apricity was a fourth higher, so in G rather than D like it is on the record. Lyrically they're both about finding hope and solace in dark times through nature. WINE was basically a bag of riffs that I moved around like a puzzle that eventually clicked into place, and the heavy gross outro riff was just something that came out of us jamming the song, same with the solo for apricity - I jammed it that way the first time and thankfully the practice session was recorded! I went back and learnt it from the recording - technically it's nothing special but I thought it was perfect! Reverie and Sleep are one track in my head and are pure chilled out escapism - I found a lot of escape in sleep and the track had this heavy lullaby vibe that I really dug. Same with Aubade, the name comes from a love poem usually performed at dawn, and the song is kind of a love poem to dreaming.

OHMs Peak: Could we get into a glimpse of the Sunbreather background and how the band formed along with any prior groups or projects you may have been involved with?

Sunbreather: The three of us have a long history and have jammed on and off for over a decade at this point. Chris and I were at school together and George is my brother and we've all been really close friends for most of our lives. Back in the day we'd jam covers in Chris' garage. We all got super into the UK underground stoner scene in our early twenties, and became obsessed with bands like Elephant Tree, Boss Keloid, Barbarian Hermit, Battalions (I could go on listing bands forever here). If it was a stoner gig in Manchester between 2014 and 2020 then you could put your house on at least one of us 3 having been there! We often talk about that as the "golden era", it felt like there was a gig every weekend - it was glorious! In about 2018 George and I started throwing ideas for songs back and forth and eventually we convinced Chris to join and started jamming. One pandemic later we had an album full of songs ready to go and we started gigging.

OHMs Peak: Sunbreather your self-titled track is an absolute juggernaut on the album. The meandering jazz percussion and majestic riffs combined with the angelically soothing vocals make this our favorite.How did the track come about and take us through your passion for the title.

Sunbreather: The title comes from a misheard lyric in Antarcticans Thawed by Sleep. I misheard "sun prevails" as "sunbreather" and I thought it sounded cool so I named the first song I wrote for the band that, and we could never come up with anything better. Funnily enough there's a band in Canada also called Sunbreather and we got chatting about how we came up with the name and they also came up with it in the exact same way! I couldn't believe it, it was so funny. The name then inspired the lyrics to the track - which are about coming out of a depression cocoon into the sun and just breathing in the beauty of nature. From a guitar and vocal point of view the song is very heavily influenced by Elephant tree, the main riff was started as me trying to write a riff similar to Attack of the Altaica. The verse is in the mixolydian mode and the main riff is in the dorian mode so both give you a bright, hopeful sound but the chorus is just a touch darker, which i think fits the lyrics really well. There's the psychedelic interlude that relies on the major scale so has an even brighter, happier feel, so a bit of escape before we go back to dorian for the heavy bridge part, and the outro is a repeated perfect cadence - the major seven chord of the fifth into the major one chord, which is like the most final sounding, resolving chord change you can get.

OHMs Peak: Where was Sunbreather’s very first gig? Were you nervous ? How ds it come together?

Sunbreather: We played our first gig at Crank Studios in Morley near Leeds which is a music school with a lovely vegan cafe/bar, we were all terrified and the audience was almost entirely our families and friends, which I think is even harder than playing to strangers because you have to see them again. We all had a blast though and it was lovely to be surrounded by loved ones. It was all livestreamed on facebook and I think it's probably still on their page if you scroll back far enough. We played everything on the album except Reverie and Sleep. I think it went pretty well for a first gig but it wasn't the best, the drum kit kept walking away from Chris and the PA just couldn't really keep up with our Matamps!

OHMs Peak: What band NOT in the psych/stoner genre would you love to tour with that would most compliment your sound?

Sunbreather: That's a tricky one, I love doom-adjacent acoustic stuff like Dorthia Cottrell, Emma Ruth Rundle and Chelsea Wolfe, I think we could get a real chill vibe going. There's definitely going to be some of that sort of stuff on the second album. Also I adore The Beatles and Fleetwood Mac, in fact we've recently been working on a doom cover of The Chain, so that would be neat.

OHMs Peak: Sunbreather is stranded on an island with only a solar powered turntable and majestic powered solar blue tooth speakers. The band collectively can only choose one album. Which album to you agree to?

Sunbreather: This led to some really intense discussion but I think it would have to be Melted On The Inch by Boss Keloid, it's a masterpiece in every sense. The riffs, the tone, the drums, the groove, the vocals, the lyrics, we were all really obsessed with that album for years when it came out and there's a track that's probably going to be on our second album that heavily pulls from their progressive sludgey sound. Alex Hurst's lyrics and philosophy have been a massive influence on me and my lyrics, and I think they'd keep our spirits up. It would also be a great reminder of all those gigs where we bonded over this beautiful, heavy music.

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