Blind

Harriet Wheeler can sing a melancholy line so lightly that it takes a moment to notice how dark it is. That tension gives Blind much of its character. The Sundays’ second studio album, released in 1992, retains the chiming guitar and melodic grace that had made Reading, Writing and Arithmetic so immediately distinctive, but moves into a more shadowed and experimental space. Beauty and unease are not opposites here. They keep making each other sharper.

The band produced Blind with Dave Anderson, and the record’s title comes from a lyric in “24 Hours”. Compared with the debut, the songs often feel less eager to announce themselves. David Gavurin’s guitar is capable of bright, intricate movement, yet the arrangements leave more darkness around Wheeler’s voice. The rhythm section remains understated, letting shifts in harmony and texture carry much of the drama. That patience helps explain why the album can initially seem reserved and then become increasingly absorbing.

“Love” was the first single and presents the band at their most open, Wheeler’s melody moving with an ease that disguises the precision underneath it. “Goodbye” is more unsettled, its guitar patterns and vocal phrasing creating a sense that the song is continually slipping away from a simple resolution. “24 Hours” carries the phrase that gave the album its name and fits the record’s broader fascination with uncertainty and emotional distance. Even at its most melodic, Blind rarely feels uncomplicated.

The album is often identified as the Sundays’ darkest and most experimental work, but those descriptions should not suggest a forbidding listen. Its strength is subtlety. Gavurin’s guitar rarely behaves like straightforward accompaniment, Wheeler can change the emotional meaning of a line through a tiny shift in emphasis, and the arrangements are comfortable leaving space unresolved. Blind is the sort of record that grows as its contours become familiar. The hooks are there from the start; what takes longer to emerge is the strange weather surrounding them.