SUSTO prep new LP 'Time in the Sun,' touring (listen to "Summertime")

Justin Osborne has been leading Charleston, SC band SUSTO for nearly a decade, making breezy, twangy guitar pop indebted to ’70s AM radio. Earlier this year SUSTO released a live album with Band of Horses’ Ben Bridwell, and now they’re back with a new studio album, Time in the Sun, which was produced by Band of Horses’ Wolfgang Zimmerman and will be out October 29 via New West.

Time in the Sun documents a tumultuous, emotional period in Osborne’s life that included the birth of his first child and the loss of his father to cancer, not to mention everything else that happened in 2020. “There was a lot of contemplation going on in my brain, a lot of personal evolution going on in my life, and songwriting was my way of working through it all,” says Justin. “The title Time in the Sun is meant to be a monument to my own human existence and also a tribute to the human experience in general. I wouldn’t claim to understand what it means to be a human, from the countless different perspectives of the world, but I do have my own experience to reflect on and I want to be able to express and explain that in some way. I guess this album is an attempt at that.”

We’ve got the premiere of the warm, mellow “Summertime,” which comes in just under the wire at the start of Labor Day Weekend, and feels like an early September sunset. “This is a track that I wrote with my buddy Tim Bruns a few years ago,” says Justin. “I had kind of forgotten about it, but my wife has always loved it and during recording she convinced me that we should give it a try in the studio. I had always liked the song too, but wasn’t sure where it fit in with the rest of my catalog. When we picked it up in the studio though, the magic really began to come out and we had a blast laying it down. The song is about young love, and those heartbreaks that come and go like a whirlwind. They hurt like hell in the moment, but they also make you who you are and teach you how to love. It felt fitting to include this on Time in the Sun, because the album is a synopsis of my life in some ways, and even though they didn’t pan out, those relationships I had on the way to where I am now, are a big part of my story and my personality. So I guess this song is an ode to young love, and the lessons we learn from it.”

Listen to “Summertime” below.

SUSTO are on tour this fall, including South Carolina shows this weekend, and Southeast dates starting September 9 in Macon, GA. They’ve got more Southeast show in November too — all dates are listed below.

SUSTO – 2021 TOUR DATES
September 3 — Bluffton, SC — May River Music Festival
September 4 — Isle of Palms, SC — The Windjammer
September 9 – Macon, GA – Grant’s Lounge
September 10 — Athens, GA — Georgia Theatre
September 11 — Savannah, GA — District Live
September 23 — Columbia, SC — The Senate
September 24 — Nashville, TN — Americana Fest
September 25 — Mooresville, NC — Carolina Jubilee
September 28 — Wilmington, NC — Greenfield Lake Amphitheater
September 30 — St. Augustine, FL — St. Augustine Amphitheatre
October 1 — St. Petersburg, FL — Jannus Live
October 8 – Alpharetta, GA – Wire and Wood Festival
October 16 – Greenwood, SC – Uptown Market
October 30 – Maquoketa, IA – Codfish Hollow
October 31 — Evanston, IL — SPACE
November 2 — Indianapolis, IN — The Hifi
November 3 – Louisville, KY – Zanzabar
November 4 — Nashville, TN — The Basement East
November 19 — Asheville, NC — Grey Eagle Tavern & Music Hall
November 20 — Charlotte, NC — Neighborhood Theatre
December 4 — Key West, FL — Coast is Clear Music & Arts Festival
December 16 – Mobile, AL – Callaghan Irish Social Club
December 17— Birmingham, AL — Saturn
December 18 — Atlanta, GA — Terminal West