Several reviews of the Sumner Brothers' second studio album, I'll Be There Tomorrow, start similarly. No Depression's begins: "There's no reasonable explanation why I have not heard the Sumner Brothers before ... ."
Actually, there is a reasonable explanation. The Vancouver duo - playing Rozz-Tox on June 11 and recording a Daytrotter.com session while in the Quad Cities - has built a following in western Canada and the U.S. west coast over the past seven years; but it has never played "out east," in Brian Sumner's words. I didn't ask, but I think "out east" likely includes the Midwest.
"We're the turtle in the race, where we just kind of slowly grow every year," he said in a phone interview last week.
But I'll Be There Tomorrow is bringing a lot of new ears to the group following a self-titled studio album and two collections of home recordings. "It's just careful planning on our part," Brian said of the positive attention the 2012 release has received. The brothers have conscientiously cultivated media relationships, he said, which paid off when the record came out in September.
