#sweepingpromises

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Sweeping Promises, Hunger For A Way Out (Feel It, 2020)

Weird band name. Sweeping Promises. The Vague Commitments. Sounds like a bunch of stoners who’ll never get out of their practice pad, not like a razor-sharp minimalist pop song-making machine.

Everybody in the DIY/punk circles is going crazy about Hunger For A Way Out, and I’m not surprised. First of all, it’s got a great opener: the title track reminds me of “Pervert” by Primetime, it has the same exciting force and simplicity, lodging itself easily between your ears for weeks after the first listen. The album sounds great: mono, the perfect amount of lo-fi, straight up clean bass, drums and guitars with a sprinkling of synths thrown on top. It's like you’re in the room, and the room is small and sparsely furnished.

And the vocals, ah, the vocals. I don’t usually like good singers, they make me uncomfortable. Though I know it’s fake, I like the feeling of overt authenticity given by timid, untrained, out-of-tune vocals. Sweeping Promises’ singer, Lira, is the opposite of that: she builds sweet harmonies on top of the jagged instrumentals, stretching her voice with confidence from a lower, almost spoken register to beautifully attuned falsetto and powerful bursts of energy. It’s a ways from what I’m used to appreciating, yet I find it endearing, catchy, and obviously impressive.

The record goes by quick (spins at 45, too) and is easy on the ears. Though definitely equipped with a sweetness and a soft touch, it’s build on a bedrock of rough, gritty sensibility, rooted in the first wave of British post-punk (“Out Again”, one of the best songs on the album), but also in 90s alt-rock (“An Appetite” has a chorus that would’ve broken MTV in 1996). As an old millennial, I feel like this is a record that would appeal to Gen Z listeners, with its nostalgia-tinged sound, its personal, anxiety-soaked lyrics and its quick, straightforward songwriting—that is, if Gen Z listened to independently released guitar-based music, but they don’t, so Sweeping Promises will have to settle for The Quietus’ year-end best-of list or something like that.

Click here to listen to Hunger For A Way Out on Bandcamp.