Track Spotlight: "The Sun Will Rise Again" — the Album's Long Sunrise

Some song titles describe a sound. The Sun Will Rise Again makes a promise. It’s track twenty-one on Piano Reveries, Michael Clinesmith’s 22-track album, and at eight minutes and forty-two seconds it’s the longest piece on the record. If you’ve been looking for hopeful piano music that takes its time before it offers you anything, this is where the album keeps that promise.

The album’s longest, most patient piece

Nothing else on Piano Reveries runs this long. The opener, After the Storm, is 6:44. The two long explorations in the middle of the record, Minor Major and Minor Major 2, clock in at 7:29 and 7:56. “The Sun Will Rise Again” goes past all of them.

That length is a choice. Many of the album’s brightest moments are short. Joyous is under two minutes and Race is done in three and a half. A composer who can say what he wants in 1:50 doesn’t write 8:42 by accident. When a piece runs this long, it’s because the idea needs that much room.

The music page lists it as Thematic, one of only two tracks on the album with that label. In game-score terms, a thematic piece is built around an idea that’s meant to mean something, a motif that stands for a place or a feeling or a turning point, rather than a loop that fills a room. Piano Reveries grew out of the world of Michael’s indie RPG Rebellion, so the label makes sense. This is story music.

How hope builds over nine minutes

The title tells you the shape before you press play. The sun will rise again. That word “again” carries the whole piece. It means there was a night. It means it’s been dark for a while, and something is about to change.

Hope is hard to write honestly. The easy version is a big major-key moment that arrives fast and asks you to feel better on cue. Nearly nine minutes of solo piano can’t work that way. There’s no orchestra to swell, no percussion to push things along. One player at one instrument has to carry the listener from the start of the piece to the end, and the only way to do that is gradually.

The artwork that goes with the track on the music page makes the same point. It isn’t a sunrise at all. It’s the middle of a snowy night. A dragon sits at a grand piano with icicles hanging off the lid, playing under a single streetlamp, and two small dragons huddle underneath out of the snow. The picture doesn’t show the morning. It shows what gets you through to it: someone keeps playing in the cold, and the little ones stay close and safe until the light comes back.

Space, repetition, and slow lift

A long piece needs a different kind of listening. You aren’t waiting for a hook. You’re settling into a place and noticing how it changes.

That’s why this track rewards you most when it’s the only thing you’re doing. On a long drive, on a late night, or in the quiet stretch before the house wakes up, the length becomes part of the experience. You stay inside one idea long enough that when it moves, you feel it move.

Michael writes this way across the album. His pieces run as long as their ideas hold, which is why a 49-second closer and a nearly nine-minute theme can sit side by side without either one feeling out of place. You can read more about that approach in our look at his composing process, but the short version is simple: one idea, given room.

Where it sits near the album’s end

Sequencing is one of the quiet pleasures of Piano Reveries, and this track’s position is a big part of what it means.

It comes right after Working Through It, the album’s other thematic piece. That one is five minutes and four seconds of steady resolve, the unglamorous middle part where the only plan is to keep going. “The Sun Will Rise Again” is its answer, and it’s longer. The album gives hope more room than struggle, and that feels deliberate.

Then the record closes with Happy Anniversary, a 49-second piece and the only piano-and-voice track on the album. After nearly nine minutes of waiting for the light, the album ends with something small and personal and warm.

Read the last three titles in order: Working Through It. The Sun Will Rise Again. Happy Anniversary. Struggle, then hope, then celebration. It’s a three-act ending that no single track could deliver on its own, and “The Sun Will Rise Again” is the act in the middle holding it together. Hearing it on its own is lovely. Hearing it in sequence is the full experience.

Hear “The Sun Will Rise Again” on Piano Reveries

The best way to meet this piece is to give it the full 8:42 without doing anything else. You can play the previews and buy Piano Reveries right here on the site. Get the complete 22-track album, or pick up “The Sun Will Rise Again” by itself. If you’d rather stream it, the album is live on Spotify, Apple Music, and the other major services. Try it after “Working Through It” and let it play through to “Happy Anniversary.”

To follow the studio and catch new music as it’s released, subscribe on YouTube. To support the work directly and get closer to how it’s made, Patreon is the place. If you’d rather play this music than listen to it, Michael’s scores are available through Sheet Music Plus and Sheet Music Direct.

This thematic writing started in a game. Rebellion, the studio’s indie RPG, is on Steam, and its music is available as the Rebellion Soundtrack DLC. If you like how this piece turns one idea into a whole emotional arc, that’s the world it came from.

And if your own project has a moment that needs music like this, the long dark stretch before the light comes back, that’s exactly the kind of cue Michael writes. You can hire him for a custom score on SoundBetter, read more about the studio, or get in touch directly.

It takes eight minutes and forty-two seconds to get there, and the album makes sure it does.