Take Back The Sun is a rock band out of Fort Atkinson in Southern Wisconsin, built around Ivan McIntyre on guitar and lead vocals, Hunter Hemenway on guitar and vocals, Eli Szabo and Rebekah Hawbaker on keyboards, and Andrew Baumhauer on drums and vocals. Most of the lineup has been playing together since roughly 2021, and the band has already built a genuinely impressive run for itself, releasing its debut album Sedamore in April 2025 and landing sets at Brat Fest, Summerfest, the MAMAs Award Show, and the Taste of Madison, all within a single year. “Modern Treason”, out June 19th, tackles political turmoil head-on, and the band has said their main goal with it is simply reaching as many listeners as possible.
It’s genuinely promising to see a band this young already sounding this locked in. A lineup that’s only been playing together for a handful of years, landing slots at events the size of Summerfest, is not a small accomplishment, and “Modern Treason” reflects that experience directly. The song doesn’t sound like a group still finding its footing; it sounds like a band that’s already logged real stage time and knows exactly how a track like this needs to build and land.
The chemistry across the band is the clearest strength here, particularly between the two keyboard parts and the guitars, which fill out the arrangement without crowding it. But Andrew Baumhauer’s drumming deserves specific credit. It’s the backbone that lets everything else in the arrangement take the risks it does, driving the track’s urgency without ever overplaying or fighting for space, exactly the kind of steady, confident foundation a hard rock song built around a genuinely charged theme needs to actually land its punches.
For a band with this much still ahead of them, having only released one album so far, “Modern Treason” is a strong sign of where Take Back The Sun is headed. The polish here isn’t studio gloss covering for a lack of experience; it’s the sound of a band that’s already put in real work together, and it shows in every part of the track.
