Sunflower Bean Mortal Primetime

Critic's Take

The review roundup does not discuss Sunflower Bean or Mortal Primetime directly, so there are no described best tracks on Mortal Primetime like “Champagne Taste” or “Nothing Romantic” to evaluate here. The writer focuses on April 2025 highlights across many artists, leaving the specifics of Sunflower Bean’s songs unmentioned. Because the piece is a broad Staff Picks column, readers seeking the best songs on Mortal Primetime will need a dedicated review rather than this roundup.

Key Points

• No specific tracks from Mortal Primetime are discussed, so the best song cannot be determined from this review.
• The album’s strengths cannot be assessed here because the review is an April roundup that omits Sunflower Bean entirely.

Critic's Take

Sunflower Bean’s Mortal Primetime feels like a jukebox of big-hearted rock, and the best songs on Mortal Primetime - notably “Champagne Taste”, “Waiting For The Rain” and “Shooting Star” - sell that brazen, theatrical joy. Alex McLevy writes with delighted specificity, celebrating how “Champagne Taste” launches the record with Seger-sized riffs while “Waiting For The Rain” becomes a cathartic ballad crowned by a knockout solo. The review’s voice revels in the album’s refusal to be contemporary-cool, arguing that these tracks trade restraint for emotional payoff and, in doing so, emerge as the best tracks on Mortal Primetime. The tone is exuberant and exacting, insisting that this record’s best songs are unapologetically maximal and, somehow, timeless.

Key Points

• “Champagne Taste” is the best song because it announces the record’s maximalist joy with a Seger-sized riff and theatrical vocals.
• The album’s core strength is its confident fusion of decades of rock styles into emotionally direct, big-hearted songs.

Themes

Critic's Take

In Sunflower Bean's Mortal Primetime Lana Williams privileges songs that marry grit with tenderness, naming “Champagne Taste” and “Sunshine” as moments where the band's cathartic instrumentation and punk-tilting energy cohere. The review leans into the album's softer, sultry side too, citing “Waiting For The Rain” and “Take Out Your Insides” for their nostalgia and layered vocals, which makes them among the best tracks on Mortal Primetime. Overall the best songs on Mortal Primetime are those that balance the record's newfound confidence with intimacy, where resilience and vivid melodies meet without compromise.

Key Points

• “Champagne Taste” is best for its cathartic, drilling instrumentation that opens the record with confident release.
• The album's core strengths are its balance of gritty grunge and sultry nostalgia, showing maturity and resilient reinvigoration.

Themes

Critic's Take

Sunflower Bean's Mortal Primetime feels less like a bid for relevance and more like a reckoning, the record breathing slower, digging deeper, and stepping back from the brink with a clarity born of time. The reviewer's ear lingers on opener “Champagne Taste” as a bridge to their past, while praising “Take Out Your Insides” for its heartfelt, folky devastation and “Sunshine” for its My Bloody Valentine haze. It is an album that unfolds rather than shouts, where Cumming's vocals are luminous and the hooks carry quiet weight. For listeners searching for the best tracks on Mortal Primetime, those three songs repeatedly emerge as the record's most affecting moments, each showing how restraint and craft can be the album's highest rewards.

Key Points

• The best song is 'Take Out Your Insides' for its intimate, folky devastation and emotional precision.
• The album's core strengths are mature restraint, eclectic yet cohesive influences, and luminous, conviction-driven vocals.

Themes

Critic's Take

On Sunflower Bean's Mortal Primetime the best songs - notably “Nothing Romantic” and “I Knew Love” - show the band at their most assured, turning upheaval into sharp, focused songwriting. The record pivots from grungy opener “Champagne Taste” to the Joni Mitchell-tinged plea of “I Knew Love”, and it is that bold contrast that makes the best tracks stand out. The searing guitar solo before the final chorus of “Nothing Romantic” and Julia Cumming's spectral vocals on “Look What You've Done To Me” crystallise why these are the best tracks on Mortal Primetime. The band's ease across alt-rock, folk and blissful pop means the top songs reward repeated listens rather than instant categorisation.

Key Points

• The best song is driven by a searing guitar solo and raw certainty, making "Nothing Romantic" the standout.
• The album's core strength is its confident genre-blending and use of personal transition as creative fuel.

Themes

Critic's Take

On Sunflower Bean’s Mortal Primetime, the best songs - notably “Champagne Taste” and “Nothing Romantic” - trade the band’s usual bite for a softer, more vulnerable center. The reviewer’s ear lingers on Julia Cumming’s startlingly intimate voice in “There’s a Part I Can’t Get Back” and the way “Shooting Star” turns bleakness into a gentle acoustic beauty. Stern rock bookends like “Champagne Taste” provide necessary edges, but it is the narrative and hooks across the record that make the best tracks resonate. Overall the album rewards listeners drawn to storytelling and pop melodies more than pure sonic dynamism.

Key Points

• The best song is emotionally potent because it pairs traumatic lyric intimacy with bright melodies.
• The album’s core strengths are narrative songwriting, vocal vulnerability, and pop hooks amid occasional rock edges.

Critic's Take

In his buoyant register, Simon Vozick-Levinson presents Sunflower Bean as still capable of thrill-seeking pop-rock, singling out the opener “Champagne Taste” as a kinetic highlight and a gateway to the band’s new sound on Mortal Primetime. He emphasizes the song’s confidential thrills and Sabbath-y riffs, and implies that if you liked their live energy you’ll find this track and the record’s playful escapism rewarding. The review frames the album around personal upheaval and love, which gives context to why “Champagne Taste” feels both celebratory and earnest when declaring the best tracks on Mortal Primetime.

Key Points

• “Champagne Taste” is the best song because it captures the band’s live energy, pop melody, and rock escapism in one taut single.
• The album’s core strengths are its nostalgic rock & roll energy and themes of personal change and love, filtered through self-production.

Themes