Land of Pine is an album genuinely best summarized by two recent instagram captions from project founder rozey on @sugarscherrysweet, the official Sugar Cherry instagram page, but it’s way too easy today to miss something great, entirely because of a social media company’s poorly tailored algorithm. Self-described as an idea that was never meant to be heard, Sugar Cherry was born out of rozey’s changing living situations, with his mental health shifting in tandem. He stated he’s experienced memories flooding him out of nowhere, and these moments moved him to write some of these songs on Land of Pine. As someone who also experiences pretty frequent and sometimes overwhelming floods of memory, reading this- even before hearing a song, made me feel connected to the project in a meaningful way. 

Delving into the 19 songs on Land of Pine, I experienced everything. This project is heavy at times; the opener titled “Every Knife In The House Was Mine”, sounds Celtic. There is an eight minute ambient track called “Ten Thousand Pines” that is easily on par with the best work from ambient scene icons like Flatsound. There’s a rough-around-the-edges blown out rock song called “Heroin”,  that is followed by the plucking of an acoustic guitar, whispered vocals, and a beautifully tragic, 20 word song title- “Somehow A Part Of Me Still Thinks You’re Coming Home Because In My Dreams I Still Get To Kiss You Goodbye”. 

If you go onto x8music.com/landofpine you will be taken to a slideshow of sorts, one that flips you through a series of polaroids, we see photos of rozey: a series of candid pictures of friends, animals, rooms, and cities, a mattress without a frame, a blurry photo of a toilet with blood. This is an album that at the end of the day, truly feels like art made by someone who is trying to show you everything they are feeling. Everything here is so raw, even the ‘album rollout’ so-to-speak. Land of Pine is surely something I’m going to sit with throughout 2026, and though I would love to hear more, it’s actually unlikely any more Sugar Cherry songs will be made given the circumstances this album was made under, I think that is to be respected.

Listen To Land Of Pine: open.spotify.com/album/0mMyd6IDLycxlDihDuOIaM?si=GY9DCBmXStuV6g38QwLCww 

Written By Em Bishoff: