Quality Living - Sumac Red

​Quality Living

Sumac Red
​self-released; 2026

​By Jamie Funk
​

I grew up at a time when indie rock felt like a secret language you had to stumble into. Bands like Modest Mouse, Pavement, and Yo La Tengo weren’t just influences, they were entry points into a different way of thinking about songs, where looseness and intent somehow coexisted. Listening to “Sumac Red,” the lead single from Glacier by New Jersey five-piece Quality Living, I get flashes of that same sensibility, not as revivalism but as something that understands why those records mattered in the first place.

“Sumac Red” moves with a kind of restless confidence, shifting gears just enough to keep things slightly off balance without losing its center. The transitions feel natural, like a band actually playing together in a room, reacting in real time rather than assembling parts on a grid. There’s a fullness to the recording that avoids the flattened edges of bedroom production, giving the guitars and rhythm section room to breathe while still keeping everything tightly coiled.

The melodies land quickly and stick. The vocals carry a casual clarity that never tries too hard to sell the song, which ends up making them more convincing. I hear echoes of Pavement’s slanted looseness, Of Montreal’s color, and The Flaming Lips’ sense of scale, but the band doesn’t lean on those reference points as a crutch. Instead, they treat them like raw material, shaping something that feels immediate and self-contained.

“Sumac Red” is a cool song I would have enjoyed just as much over twenty years ago when I was coming of age.  It's familiar in a very nostalgic way for those who grew up on the somewhat obvious 90's indie rock influence and beyond of this band. 

It’s the kind of track that would have slipped easily into a late-90s indie rotation, but it doesn’t feel stuck there. It just understands the appeal of that era and translates it without sanding off its edges.

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