A full room for Sunday 1994 in Cardiff
Words: Ciaran Hiscox
★★★★★
I stood in the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd as the lights dimmed to purple glows, and the room softened, ready for Sunday 1994 to take the stage. They graced Clwb Ifor Bach with their dream pop, each song feeling like a lyrical film unfolding around you.
Photo: Tallulah Totten
The band walked on to David Lynch’s Twin Peaks title track, letting the theme play as they prepared. The guitars transitioned into ‘Our Troubles’, leaning on nostalgic strings and noir-like dream pop with hypnotic rhythm. Angsty lyrics drew the audience in, singing along to “there’s two under one umbrella.”
The sound shifted to the bittersweet swoon of ‘Softly’. Lee Newell’s dreamy guitar glimmered around Paige Turner’s delicate vocals, heightening the melancholy.
‘Doomsday’, the first track from the EP Devotion, sustained the intimate mood, warming existential dread with a shoegaze haze that made the existential bearable. The title track, ‘Devotion’, followed. It explored love, fate and the fallout of devotion, with the band serving as both instrument and soundtrack to the poetic lyrics.
Photo: Tallulah Totten
Returning to the self-titled album Sunday 1994, a personal favourite, ‘TV Car Chase’ blended dark humour, contentment and romantic narrative, anchored by a chantable hook: “heads are in the oven.” ‘Blonde’ followed, advancing the theme of darker intimacy within a relationship, ending with ethereal release.
‘Stained Glass Window’ and ‘Silver Ford’ felt like two sides of the same coin. The first explored forbidden love and religious judgment, while the latter offered a hopeful, utopian resolution. ‘The Loneliness Of The Long Flight Home’ embraced a sombre 90s aesthetic, like a bittersweet romcom ending you never see after the credits roll.
Rainfall sounds introduced ‘Rain’, and the band asked the audience to lift their phone torches and sway with the music as it shimmered with dark sincerity, exploring love through hardship and continuing the theme of devotion.
‘Mascara’ demonstrated how seamlessly lyrics and music blended. Heavy emotional themes became palpable yet easy to absorb. Before the encore, two more EP tracks followed. ‘Still Blue’ was heavier and rockier, while ‘Picking Flowers’ returned to the dreamy aesthetic, ending on a narrative-led song about personal growth.
‘Blossoms’ opened the encore, exploring yearning and adolescent memory. I felt like I was in a coming-of-age indie film. Raw. Authentic. Rooted in a time slipping away. Sunday 1994 closed with fan favourite ‘Tired Boy.’ Honest and relatable, it depicted a real-life couple’s drama, a love song built on intricacies rather than clichés. It highlighted the band’s strengths: emotion, cinematic scope, and a seamless blending of genres.
Sunday 1994 made each song they performed tonight feel like its own self-contained short film made by A24 that takes you on a lyrical storytelling journey with one hell of a dreamy indie pop cinematic soundtrack.