Since the early days of alternative music, the city of Sheffield has been a place where independent artists can forge their careers and make great music. In this series, Mad Sounds with Jake Bollington, I document the sounds of the city by speaking with bands that you need to know about.
This week, I met with Chelsea and Bradley, members of the four-piece dream pop band Sundress, to speak about their recent experiences on the festival circuit, their streaming successes and their hotly anticipated debut album.
The group are best known for their debut single ‘Meet Me in Montauk’, an ethereal work of jangle pop that has invited favourable comparisons to groups like Cocteau Twins and The Cure. The warm reception to this song as well as their following singles has helped the band to make a significant impact on the national festival circuit, performing at events like Tramlines and the Rock and Roll Circus up and down the country
Given the runaway success of the band’s initial singles, I wanted to understand how the group have been able to make such an impact so early in their career. We spoke about their influences, and how the group has developed since their initial inception.
CHELSEA: Me and Brad originally formed the idea of Sundress in 2023… [Our sound] came from a multitude of different inspirations and artists that we all listen to… At the time it was very indie pop driven, very The 1975, the Smiths and stuff like that… We’ve [now] gone for this more dreamy shoegaze sound… We’re currently in the middle of writing our debut album, and there has been a few songs where we’re like ‘Hmm, sonically is this who we are still or who we want to be?’… Our first few songs all together sound very, very similar but then the new songs that we’re writing they still have that touch… they just have a more refined kind of picture.
The group began, as most local bands do, performing in the city’s staple independent venues. The group and I discussed their favourite local spots, including their memories of recently closed Sheffield landmark, The Leadmill.
CHELSEA: We played most smaller venues when we first started out as a band. I think we played The Washington twice. We played Sidney and Matilda countless times.
BRAD: Yellow Arch is the one that we’ve probably said is a favourite multiple times… Their PA system and desk is super, super good. Really accommodating. I can see why a lot of the big bands that tour actually play at Yellow Arch… Leadmill was amazing. I imagine it probably is pretty similar with it being Electric Studios now but obviously the morality of it is more questionable.
Since these initial performances, the group have very quickly ascended from a fledgling band playing smaller indie venues to being able to play more established festivals.
BRAD: Our first gig was Tramlines Fringe of 2024… and I remember we sat outside of Dorothy Pax after like ‘Imagine if one day we get to do a Tramlines main stage’ and then literally, in 2025, a year later to the day we were doing it… It’s the dream, really, of any band.
More recently, the group released their third single ‘Beach House Baby’, an ambitious dream pop record that showcases the pair’s phenomenal pop songwriting sensibilities. With a chorus that would have impressed Brian Wilson himself and guitar-playing that reflects Brad’s love of bands like Tears for Fears and The Smiths, it is perhaps the group’s best song yet. The pair spoke about their process in writing the track, and how it all came together following a fateful trip to their former music college.
BRAD: We released ‘Meet Me in Montauk’ and it was kind of like… ‘Well, what do we do now? How do we better ourselves?’… It was kind of a little bit of writer’s block where everything we were doing was not good enough or we were in this weird limbo of not knowing what our next steps were… We went into our old University for a day… and we were just like ‘Can we sit at a computer and record something?’ And then I think we played the chords round once and were like ‘Oh that’s quite cool!’ and then [Chelsea] sang the chorus… and we were like ‘That’s really cool!’ and we recorded it at this really janky setup.
CHELSEA: It was a MacBook and one microphone and that was literally it. (laughs)
BRAD: We showed it to all of our guys, the band and the team, and they were all like ‘Woah!’ (laughs)… Our guitar tech [is] a massive metalhead and doesn’t really listen to any indie and even he was into it, and at that point we were like ‘Okay, this is probably quite good.’… We didn’t want to rush straight into recording it because we wanted to be like ‘Okay how do we want it to sound?’ That’s when we went to references and Men I Trust were a big one for that one. 
It’s been a long time since I heard a group come out with as much talent and promise as this band. Their output thus far reflects a songwriting partnership capable of truly phenomenal music, and it’s very exciting to consider where they will go next. Sundress are a band to watch. I thank them for coming to speak with me.
The band’s latest single ‘Beach House Baby’ is available now, and their debut EP will be releasing in the near future. They are supporting The Entitled Sons at the Foundry on the 5th of November and are headed to Nottingham on the 12th of December to support Desperate Journalist at The Bodega. They will also be appearing at the Hockey Hustle festival in Nottingham on the 25th of October.
Image Credit: @tom_sunderland
