Sunday Mourners know rock and roll is art, and on their brash, infectious debut album ‘A-Rhythm Absolute,’ the L.A. post-punk quartet is keeping the dream of making a life in music alive in 2026.

by Natasha Olson

Stream: ‘A-Rhythm Absolute’ – Sunday Mourners

When I hear a new artist, I often ask myself – and this is a very useful metric that I think everyone should use – “Would Lester Bangs like this band?”

Due to the complicated and often contradictory nature of Bangs’ personality, the answer to this question is almost always a resounding ‘no.’

After seeing a particularly riveting set from Sunday Mourners, an L.A.-based post-punk quartet whose members hail from everywhere but Los Angeles, I conceded that Lester Bangs might give a reluctant nod of approval.

For one, Sunday Mourners possess a certain self-awareness that Bangs valued greatly – they have years of EPs and singles they chose to erase from existence simply because, according to the band, “they sucked.” Drummer Z Long laments the loss of the pre-Internet era: “We could have faked our death and changed our name. You can’t do that anymore. They’re gonna find you.”

Like Bangs, the Mourners also have a profound respect for their alternative forebears: Velvet Underground, Television, Patti Smith – but their admiration is not imitation. They understand what came before them to an obsessive degree, and they’re determined to continue a rock and roll tradition that people think is dead.

Lester Bangs fought to make the world see rock and roll as art, and the Mourners adopted that mentality in a way that’s digestible for 2026. Released on California indie label Curation Records, their debut LP A-Rhythm Absolute transcends its surface-level post-punk influences, combining raw attitude and catchy melodies to become an artistic statement for the modern age in itself.

With its razor-sharp observations and anthems that drip with attitude, A-Rhythm Absolute makes it clear Sunday Mourners aren’t really jaded with the music industry; they’re hopeful, ambitious and firmly believe a life in rock and roll is the only one worth living.

Brent Rademaker, owner of Curation Records and member of alt-country outfit Beachwood Sparks, watched the Mourners play around Los Angeles and develop into, as Brent puts it, an “exceptional band with exceptional songs.” From there, Brent and the Mourners forged a lasting connection.

“When I heard their album, I didn’t think our label had a shot at putting it out,” Brent told me. “I thought it was going to be on a bigger label like Sub Pop, or something that wasn’t run out of a house, but we got lucky and things clicked, and we got to release the album. It’s easily one of my favorite albums of the last five years.”

Though it was recorded in Long Beach and the Mourners are based in Los Angeles, A-Rhythm Absolute could be a New York record. Its minimalist approach complements dense urban skylines – it’s the record you want in your ears while traversing a city for the first time.

I first interviewed Sunday Mourners a few years ago when they were a college band playing Gram Parsons-esque folk and figuring out how to exist within their own limitations during the pandemic.

The band formed as college freshmen in 2019 and went through a slew of stylistic changes, but their lineup and friendship remained the same. “We stuck it out long enough to grow into ourselves,” Z told me.

“We had a really direct choice early on,” frontman and guitarist Quinn Robinson continued. “We’re not going to be a college band. We set out with the notion that we’re a band and we’re gonna live that way. We don’t want to be defined by college.”

Robinson met lead guitarist Max Pugh on a college housing forum and they instantly bonded over music. Recognizing their creative spark, the pair were eager to start making the kind of music they always dreamed about together – they haven’t stopped pursuing that idea since.

“Sometimes a song will come from an idea [Quinn] had and I’ll help him complete his thought. Sometimes it’s the opposite,” Pugh said of their songwriting process. “We’re super lucky to be able to do that with each other.”

The two recruited bassist Casey Hoerman and drummer Z Long before they even had the capacity to start a band.

“We were learning,” Robinson recalled. “We all grew up with very obsessive musical interests. That’s what we did – we’re all losers at heart.”

“We had ambitions bigger than what we were even ready for,” said Z. With the quick wit characteristic of all members of the band, Robinson jumped in: “And we made shit songs. Emphasis on the ‘weren’t ready for.’”

What’s changed since the last time we spoke? Their answer was quick, without taking a beat: Everything.

But their humble college beginnings forged a powerful musical bond that proved to outlive all of their self-proclaimed shortcomings, and their longstanding friendship is undoubtedly a reason for their recent success.

Their set today doesn’t contain a single song from their formative years – the band has left that era behind entirely and wiped the slate clean with A-Rhythm Absolute. “This album is our first real statement as a band that we all align with,” Robinson admitted.

A-Rhythm Absolute just sounds different. Unlike previous releases, the Mourners wrote and recorded all the material within a year. The effect was a sense of immediacy in the production without the songs sounding incomplete; the album is cohesive and succinct but each track packs a punch. Though the punk-adjacent urgency remains throughout the record, the Mourners still experiment with dynamics, as heard on the controlled chaos of “11,000 Volts” directly following the slow-burning 12-minute epic “Darling.”

The record’s most prominent influence is legendary ‘70s proto-punk band Television. “[Marquee Moon] is a cornerstone. It’s an album we pull from a lot or look back to,” Robinson said as he emphatically listed the Mourners’ favorite records with just the right amount of pretentiousness required by any indie band worth their salt.

Though their influences are artsy, the Mourners can’t shake their pop sensibilities – they know how to write a hook that pulls you in and never lets you go. Album standouts like “There’s A Garden In You” and “Careers in Acting” are harsh and angular, but their melodies remain accessible. Tight rhythms, sparse guitar and melodic bass lines set the tone for Quinn Robinson’s monotone, commanding vocals. His keen storytelling provides a thought-provoking narration of existence as a young person in today’s often challenging landscape.

The band is drawn to the drier production of albums that let the music speak for itself: “We try not to overindulge in extraneous overdubbing and things of that nature,” Robinson continued.

Still, Sunday Mourners don’t sound like a cookie-cutter post-punk band.

Their cover of Richard Hell the night I saw them doubled as a wink of self-awareness and a sign of respect. A-Rhythm Absolute is not a casual or thoughtless attempt at post-punk. It’s a pastiche of the Mourners’ favorite music of all time – the thing in life that means the most to them.

Indie rock avatars the Velvet Underground influence the atmosphere throughout A-Rhythm Absolute, but the record pulls from a variety of post-punk, indie and garage sounds. The record incorporates something from everything the band collectively adores, from the frenetic energy of The Feelies to the modern post-punk style of Parquet Courts.

The Mourners are a collaborative band; each member writes their own parts and contributes their own ideas. For instance, “11,000 Volts” features a guitar part written by Z, and “There’s A Garden In You” has a haunting upright bass part played with a bow by Casey and Max. “No one knew how to play that thing so Max and Casey just took turns going back and forth like siblings,” Robinson told me. What ended up on the record was a spliced take from both of them.

A-Rhythm Absolute gained momentum almost immediately.

The record became the Album of the Day on Bandcamp and ended up at the top of notorious music critic Anthony Fantano’s list – the band still doesn’t know how. Fantano gave the album a positive review, which put just the right amount of heat on the band at the perfect time.

Through the Mourners’ manager, A-Rhythm Absolute ended up in the hands of Alex Kapranos of the Scottish post-punk band Franz Ferdinand, who liked the record so much he invited the Mourners on a leg of their US tour. Despite many aspects of the music industry having become extinct, Sunday Mourners show there’s still a lot of mileage left in opening for a bigger band.

“We sold out of all of our records. We brought, like, 3 boxes of them. We had no merch for the second half of the tour,” Robinson recalled.

Fresh off the Franz tour and a successful run in the UK, the band finds themselves at a familiar crossroads: They want a bigger budget, but how do they get there without compromising their values? Their latest EP Terminal Boredom, released October 16th, is likely to be their last on Curation.

“It’s not that we’ve outgrown [Curation],” Casey told me. “Outgrown in the sense that it’d be nice to have more money behind us.”

Curation has been a good starting place for the band, but even Brent himself sees a brighter future for the Mourners. “I hope they get to experience what it’s like working with a bigger label because that’s when you really find out a lot about yourself,” he said.

Sunday Mourners are ambitious, maybe starry-eyed at times, but they are not willing to sell out on the internet (in fact, they wrote a whole song about it: “Careers in Acting”). “We don’t make content,” Robinson said. “That’s a real stance that the Sunday Mourners take. We find that kind of stuff soul-depriving. It doesn’t come naturally to us.”

The band’s next album is in its early stages, but their vision is focused. “Whenever we have a new set of songs that we’re trying to track, I think our goal… is to paint an honest picture of who we are as a band,” Pugh revealed. “It’s about jamming as much lightning as you can into that bottle.”

The Mourners’ sights are set on finding a label that can better support their future – a task that has become exceedingly difficult in an industry driven by follower counts.

But the band has no plans to give up any time soon. If anything, their willingness to grow together makes you believe their dreams really will become a reality.

“My goal is not to be a super star. I don’t want to be Led Zeppelin. I would like to pay my rent, pay my bills, being a touring musician,” Robinson said. “What’s doable in 2026? You can’t pay your rent doing anything unless you’re a billionaire… But I’m not going to quit a band and join a Fortune 500, you know. I’m not going to go out and get a nine to five.”

The charming use of Led Zeppelin as the standard for super stardom in 2026 reminds me that I’m talking to rock and roll obsessives with real ambitions to build a life playing songs together – an antiquated idea that many kids have become so disillusioned with they won’t even pick up a guitar in the first place.

The indie dream is alive in Sunday Mourners, and I think Lester Bangs would agree: In this case, it seems the kids are alright indeed.

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Natasha Olson is a writer and rock and roll fanatic. She enjoys collecting physical media, researching cult indie bands to write about for her blog and attending shows around Los Angeles.

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A-Rhythm Absolute

an album by Sunday Mourners