Sunspot (album release)

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Scott Markus

Sunspot

Guitar rock fans assemble: Madison trio Sunspot is unveiling its ninth studio album, The Strangest Frequency, with an early evening show July 16. The album features Sunspot's patented blend of catchy and crunchy on a dozen cuts, including the 2020 single “I Don't Wanna Be a Ghost” (see the video filmed at a haunted Lake Geneva mansion on YouTube) and other songs with supernatural themes such as the ghost hunters' lament “Spend the Night.” Tickets include a copy of the CD.

media release: Musicians with a taste for adventure and a proclivity for the paranormal, Madison's Sunspot is back with their latest and ninth studio album, The Strangest Frequency, a straight-ahead guitar rock record that indulges the band’s love of punk, metal, and pop.

The band started recording before the pandemic, and while the worldwide shutdown might have put their official studio time on hold, they didn't let being stuck at home slow them down. Throughout 2020 and 2021, their Thirsty Thursday and Paranormal Tuesday livestreams reached thousands of hungry music fans with no place to go. The band was able to record over 50 music videos from home, everyone putting their individual pieces in and then editing them together into a "live" video with tracks ranging from Sunspot originals to ridiculous covers like "Eye of the Tiger" or "Santa Baby". During this process, they kept writing and eventually finished recording the twelve songs that would form The Strangest Frequency.

The band has already released two singles from the album, the Weezer-ish "I Don't Wanna Be A Ghost" complete with a video recorded in a haunted Victorian Lake Geneva mansion and the dark country-tinged folk of "Spend The Night", a sinister ballad about staying in terrifying locations.

Other notable songs include barnburner title track, “The Strangest Frequency”, the weird Men-In-Black blues of “We’ll Be Seeing You Again”, the epic turn of “You Will Know When It Is Time”, an extraterrestrial punk twist on Marilyn Monroe’s death in “Dear Diary”, and “The Web”, a symphonic metal ode to the Transcendentalist Oversoul.

Sunspot will be releasing The Strangest Frequency at The Crucible in Madison on July 16. The doors open at 5:30pm with performance at 6:30pm. The $20 VIP ticket comes with a copy of the album and a swag bag with special Sunspot merchandise. Tickets are available for purchase at www.sunspotmusic.com

Based out of Weird Wisconsin, Sunspot is a multiple award winner, including a 5-time winner for Best Rock Album from the Madison Area Music Awards and Wisconsin Area Music Industry’s Artist of the Year, an honor shared with Garbage, Violent Femmes, and Bon Iver. Recent television and film placements include Expedition Unknown with Josh Gates, Hellier, the releases of The Fate of the Furious, and Dead Again in Tombstone starring Danny Trejo.

Recently, they have shared the stage with Smash Mouth, Third Eye Blind, AWOL Nation, Gin Blossoms, Fastball, Queensrÿche, and Everclear.