Review: Elephant Pier – Sundown For The Howling Winds

October 6, 2025

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An elephant’s strength is matched only by its gentle nature

(This review was written by Voided Grimace)

If you’ve never seen the birth of a baby elephant, it’s pretty wild. The calf just falls out of its standing mother and then after a few nudges it’s already walking. I thought about this a few times while listening to Elephant Pier’s new album, Sundown for the Howling Winds. While there’s the obvious “elephant” connection, what I was hearing also felt like watching a gooey newborn baby hitting the ground running.

Elephant Pier hails from Allston, MA and their sound would best be categorized as psych rock heavily influenced by The Doors and Queens of the Stone Age. While you can hear a bit of both on Sundown for the Howling Winds, Elephant Pier also has their own thing going on, even as a brand new band. In the spirit of their genre, the band courageously opted to track the album live in the studio with minimal overdubs. It really comes through while listening to these eleven tracks.

Their decision to track live adds a feeling of spontaneity that runs throughout the album, which can sometimes skirt the edges when a section seems to almost derail then delivers a big hook that keeps you locked in. Many of the songs will start with one instrument leading the way before the other musicians find their way into the groove, which makes me believe that large chunks of this could even have been improvised, or at least only loosely written prior to entering the studio.

Within the opening notes of first track “Dinosaurs”, the band locks into a hypnotic groove. There’s a brief pause and then what sounds like someone changing their amp channel by hand, which really adds to the minimalist feel on the track. When the chorus comes in, it’s an absolute earworm. With a name like “Dinosaur,” and the lyrics, “spread your lie, spread your wings, our design reckoning,” I chuckled at an idea I had of this song being about intelligent design. Nah, probably not.

There’s a run of truly great tracks from the beginning of this album, but “Farewell, Arsenio” is a climactic moment on the album. The song starts in a twinkly shoegaze fashion that heats up with a suspenseful tom pattern on the drums and some bass noodling. When the band finally comes crashing in with the fuzzed out chorus, it’s probably the best hook on the album. After hearing this song, I could easily see Elephant Pier doing a solid daytime set at Levitation Fest for a crowd under the influence of the finest gas station weed Texas has to offer. One ticket, please.

Speaking of the earlier-mentioned QOTSA influence, this is most obvious on “Mercury / Express to Washington” where the opening riff is strangely reminiscent of “No One Knows,” arguably one of the band’s most popular songs. The drummer does turn in a great performance, constantly shifting the groove underneath the familiar slash and grab riff to add some interest. One gripe I do have is that the song almost peters out after about three minutes and it’s almost as if the band is unsure of whether to end the song or jam it out some more. Luckily, just when I was thinking I was hearing the band try to figure it out in real time, they came crashing back in with a tightly locked groove that adds a powerful ending to the song.

Another highlight of the album is the penultimate track, “Lone Ranger,” although it is also not without its strange moments. There’s an immediate energy here and an almost anthemic chorus but just shy of the three minute mark, the band throws a real headscratcher when they play the main riff to Korn’s “Blind.” Sure, what if Head, the Munky, and the other guys were from Joshua Tree instead of Bakersfield? Aside from that eyebrow raising moment, the song is also among the best the album has to offer.

From what can be gleaned on their Instagram page, Elephant Pier appear to be pretty young and they’re obviously very talented. They make fun music and we do need more of that in our current dour times. Sundown for the Howling Winds is worthy of a listen from anyone who dallies in psych rock or desert rock, but there are a few things that stick out preventing it from being an even better album overall.

While the live in studio feel of the album is cool, the finished product would benefit from another go of mixing and mastering. At times, instruments seem to unintentionally weave in and out of the mix during some of the jammier passages. The two instrumentals, the title track and “Cardboard Box,” do also feel like the least essential songs here. Instead of serving as connective tissue, they come across as extra padding on top of what was already a decently full and good album. The inclusion of “Sundown” as the last song after the stellar “Lone Ranger” is a missed opportunity to go out on a high note.

Those minor critiques aside, Sundown for the Howling Winds is a really fun and engaging listen. I’ll absolutely keep an ear out for what Elephant Pier does next.