24. March 2025
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Media Review

Sunrunner – Sacred Arts of Navigation

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

Sunrunner - Sacred Arts of Navigation

Sunrunner - Sacred Arts of Navigation
3.5

Rating

 3.5/5

Flyctory.com Pros

  • Very wide range of songs
  • Good storytelling

Flyctory.com Cons

  • Some songs and the album feel a bit chaotic here and there

Sunrunner call their music “heavy prog-rock“. Thus, this review of their 2022 album Sacred Arts of Navigation feels to be a feast for rock guitar lovers. I have been able to listen tot he album before it has been actually released on 11th March 2022.

 

Sunrunner – About The Artists

Sunrunner are a band from Portland, Maine, USA, where they have been formed in 2008. The current lineup is a quartet. Bruno Neves is the vocalist of the Sunrunner, David Joy (bass), Ted MacInnes (drums) and Joe Martignetti (guitars) majorly do the instrumental parts. After the band started to release music with a self-titled EP in 2011, the have released four studio albums so far. The latest studio album was the 2018 Ancient Arts of Survival. In 2019, they released their third EP so far, Inner Vision.

 

Sunrunner – Sacred Arts of Navigation – Track by Track

The eleven track album lasts 57 minutes.

1. The Launch

The Launch launches the album: 64 seconds of intro.

2. Promise Of Gold

After this brief warm-up, Promise Of Gold is the first full-length track (“full length” refers to 5:40 minutes here). A nice song with good storytelling. Not too special, but a good, galloping rock rhythm to raise the listeners’ attention for the following tracks.

3. Faraway Worlds

The next two songs have already been released as singles. Faraway Worlds is much darker (and also slower) than Promise Of Gold. I like the way Sunrunner are telling stories using different kind of voices, different ways to use their instrument. Thus, the dark-ish, almost a bit of threatening atmosphere leads to a good listen.

4. Invisible Demon Of Ideology

Faraway Worlds felt a bit too loud and over-engineered at a few spots – I feel that the Invisible Demon Of Ideology does a bit too much of that at the beginning of its four minutes. Bad luck – as the song has some really nice parts later.

5. Where Is My Home

Where Is My Home comes with one of the most memorable melody lines of the album. Again, I would sometimes love to have less guitar volume and a stronger presence of the vocals, which are really nice in here.

6. Acadia Morning Ride

The album also come with some tracks, which are fully instrumental. The Acadia Morning Ride is one of them. The song is very melodic, has a strong folk music touch and thus does not match at all to the very rocking songs before. A beautiful easy and light melody.

7. Obstacle Illusion

Just when you have relaxed on the four minute morning ride, the seventh song shakes you awake with heavy riffs from the very beginning. The guitars are again in focus of this song. I feel that this takes away a bit of the potential strength of the song again. With slightly clearer sound, Obstacle Illusion strongly reminds by of Edguy, for example.

8. Dragonship

The Dragonship is setting sail on a 5:31 minutes instrumental cruise. Hard rocking parts as well as very melodic section lead to a lovely sound here. A track for soft and hard rockers.

9. Last Night In Tulum

The second half of the album comes with very surprising sounds. This musical trip to Yucatan is definitely one of them. You can feel the sad farewell feeling, but also the beach vibes. Maybe my favorite track on this album, even though it is not characteristic for Sacred Arts of Navigation at all.

10. No Mess, No Magic

After a soft track some hard rock power: No Mess, No Magic is the fastest headbanger on the album. Very forward-pushing song. Good one!

11. Navigating The Apocalypse

Navigtating The Apocalypse takes a bit of time – in this case the cruise is a 12:24 minute finale. The song is potpourri of everything you found on the eleven songs before: melodic parts, heavy rock sounds, speedy and slow parts. There are vocal section as well as some rather instumental parts. Cool listen.

 

Sunrunner – Sacred Arts of Navigation – Spotify

Here is Sacred Arts of Navigation on Spotify:

 

Sunrunner – Sacred Arts of Navigation – My View

It feels very hard for me to judge about Sacred Arts of Navigation. The album comes with such a wide range of sounds and types of songs. Some of them are handled very well by the band, other parts of the album feel even a bit of confusing. It is not top class, but overall a solid listen with good moments for any rock listener.

 

Media Reviews – US Hard Rock / Heavy Metal

Here are all my hard rock / heavy metal postings in the Media Reviews related to the USA:

 

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