North/South Carolina heavy rock outfit SHUN releases their long-awaited 2024 full-length, Dismantle.

SHUN released their self-titled debut through Small Stone in 2021. Outlaws Of The Sun called the record, “a big adventure (that) takes the listener on an exciting journey within the vastness of progressive rock and stoner metal,” while Sentinel Daily likened the record to Foo Fighters, “had they avoided a life of Hollywood openings and celebrity girlfriends, concentrating instead on year after year on the road with COC, Clutch, and Cave In… that’s a mighty fine something to sound like.”

Dismantle continues several crucial threads from the debut in terms of songwriting and the returning production of J. Robbins (who also contributes percussion, guitar, and synth), while expanding their scope with a more refined crunch and drifting, ethereal outreach. It is heavier and paints a broader landscape in Matt Whitehead’s vocal and guitar melodies, able to take a prog-metal chug in “Horses” and reshape it as the backdrop for weighted post-rock while refusing to sap its own vitality in service to shoegazey posturing.

Punk and noise rock such as Cave In and Hum feel like touchstones as much as Sabbath and whom- or whatever might’ve inspired the crush tucked at the end of “You’re The Sea,” and while Dismantle may hint as a title at notions of things coming apart, there’s as much being built in its ten tracks as is being destroyed. What results from the trio of Whitehead, bassist Jeff Baucom, and drummer Rob Elzey (Bo Leslie has since joined on guitar, re-completing the lineup) is material varied in its purpose but drawn together in traditional fashion by the electricity of its performances. The band-in-the-room feel in the methodical rollout of opener “Blind Eye” is all the more resonant with the debut having been remotely assembled during plague lockdowns.

For fans of Torche, Cave In, Alice In Chains, Failure, ASG, and huge riffs, pay heed.