Anchorage’s SunDog Can Swim Underwater
Contributed by James Dawson
Anchorage, Alaska-based trio SunDog, Dog Yard Records, has been delivering a brand of tasteful-yet-hook-laden hard rock songs since 2017 that are never short on melody and never self-indulgent. Today, they offer up the single “Underwater,” a follow-up to last year’s epic album About You, to be released on June 10.
These Treefort Music Fest veterans are masters of writing lush, instant-classic guitar rock songs that harken back to the late sixties and seventies, but that somehow still sound fresh. They have their own instantly recognizable sound. Most indie rock is about emotion and personalness, and SunDog delivers emotion and personalness in spades in this song.
“It’s definitely a personal song, and maybe that’s why it turned out relatively simple in terms of harmony and melody,” singer and guitar whiz Abi Sparkman explains. She says further that “‘Underwater’ is about feeling like you are living someone else’s life and doing a terrible job at it. Burning out before you’ve even figured out what you want to do, being dead on the vine. It’s about family dynamics, asking for help, throwing a tantrum and screaming the song’s chorus at the sky, which is, ‘I always want what I can’t have!’”
Some songs are built on a cool guitar riff, and the songwriter fits some lyrics to it. This tune, however, is built around, as the songwriter explains, an anthemic chorus that will have audiences singing it for a full week.
Sparkman says of the approach to writing “Underwater,” “This song was different because I really just wanted to scream the chorus lyrics and basically wrote the whole song around that. There are some unique moments with the haunting intro, cool bass and drum sections, and the longest and most involved guitar solo I’ve put in a song. We always try to find a balance between songwriting and shredding.”
SunDog continues to write singles for an upcoming summer 2026 release while they play individual shows and festivals such as Chugach Fest on June 19. “Underwater” will drop on all streaming platforms on June 10.