Tom and Ian Spanic, a father-son duo whose rich harmonic blend is as sweet as the Everly Brothers crying in the rain, could pull off a roots-rocking treasure such as “Honey” or “I Hear You Talking” without even breaking a sweat. And they’ve certainly mastered the fine art of coaxing the twang out of an unsuspecting Strat. But Sunshine also finds the family stretching out beyond the roots-rock border.
Take the title cut, a hazy psychedelic rocker that almost comes off as a sequel to the Beatles’ “Rain”, complete with convincingly Ringo-esque drum fills and a backward guitar solo. “Secret” takes that psychedelic flashback in an even trippier direction, adding Tex-Mex organ, vocals that feel like they come with a lava lamp, and a solo suggesting what Roger McGuinn might’ve played if he’d recorded this one on the morning after “Eight Miles High”.
On “Didn’t Love You Anyway”, they rock like a ’60s garage band covering Larry Williams, with a solo as trashy as anything this side of those earliest Kinks hits. Then there’s the Beatlesque ache of “When The Night Has Come”, fueled by the strum of acoustic guitars.
Wherever these guys take the sound, though, in the end, it still sounds like a Spanic Boys record, each track boasting some truly heroic guitar work, from the stately southern-rock-meets-Memphis-soul vibe of “What Will You Do?” to the headier psychedelic trip they take on “Secret” and the title cut.