Sunglasz Vendor turn it up to breaking point on Break Glass

Bristol trio Sunglasz Vendor are back with their second album Break Glass (out 5 June), a record that pushes their wiry, off-kilter sound into something louder, messier, and deliberately overwhelming. Recorded with Joseph Futak, the album leans hard into early 2000s alt-rock excess—stacked guitars, crushed dynamics, and a sense of chaos that feels both nostalgic and confrontational.

Led by the frenetic single Guilty Pleasure, the band sharpen their mix of mathy precision and emotional sprawl, taking aim at trend cycles and performative cool while embracing the raw thrill of volume and immediacy. It’s a record about restlessness, delayed change, and creative tension—caught somewhere between “Guitar Hero canon and free-form anarchy.”

Break Glass feels louder, more chaotic, and deliberately overloaded sonically—what pushed you toward that “blown out to absurd proportions” approach, and how did working with Joseph Futak help shape that vision?

I wanted the 'loudness war' vibe that most of the albums that inspired it are often criticised for. Turn of the millennium rock is often chastised online for having no dynamic range but ultimately loudness feels good and is immature and direct in the most satisfying way.

‘Guilty Pleasure’ critiques cycles of trend-chasing and irony in underground music scenes. How do you navigate wanting to belong to a scene while also resisting the pressures and performance that can come with it?

I think as you get older you realise that just wanting to belong to a scene doesn't really achieve anything. You should make the art you want to make so that it exists and so that you get the joy of making it. Presuming you are already in the right place, it either happens or it doesn't. If you are lucky enough to be surrounded by enough other artists whose music and audience overlaps with yours then that is - in large part - luck. We aren't really part of a scene, but I think the main pressure to be wary of is jealousy.

You’ve described Sunglasz Vendor as balancing “Guitar Hero canon and free-form anarchy.” How do you approach writing songs that feel both hooky and unpredictable without one side overpowering the other?

It's hard to formulate it, our ears and fingers are clearly just drawn that way. I love hooky melodies and songs that take your hand and lead you through a journey you didn't even realise that you were expecting. I guess the more experimental side of things partly comes from self-consciousness/critique (feeling stuff has to be weird to be cool) but also a deep seated restlessness that comes from an unknown source. Maybe it's because I have consistently been in a band for most of my life so feel trapped by the form? I grew up listening to quite a lot of jazz via my dad, maybe that has something to do with it?

There’s a strong thread in Break Glass about delayed change and personal upheaval. Was there a particular moment or mindset that became the emotional centre of this record?

The overarching mindset is the realisation that I need to stop coasting and expecting good things to just happen without huge amounts of effort on my part. In some areas of my life I have always practised this, but in others I have far too much faith in inaction. 'Life doesn't happen to you' kinda vibe.

Coming from Bristol’s experimental scene but leaning into early 2000s alt-rock and emo nostalgia, how do you see Sunglasz Vendor reinterpreting those influences rather than simply revisiting them?

Because you have three musicians that are rooted in some of the weirdest city's weirdest bands trying and failing to write the next Everlong. Bristol has an incredible electronic, noise and experimental scene and while this band is - in many ways - a counteractive force, we are no doubt indebted to it.