by Taylor Ruckle (@TaylorRuckle)
Hunger for a Way Out, the debut album by Boston post-punk duo Sweeping Promises, is idiosyncratic in the (brilliant) extreme; recorded, as the Bandcamp description notes, in an unused concrete laboratory using a proprietary “single-mic technique,” it’s set in a sonic world all its own. All it takes to get you there is that first cymbal crash and a half-strangled guitar lick, but it spends ten solid tracks drawing you further in, as they boil new-wave neuroticism down to a science--and they make it so much fun.
I did just call this a debut record, but Sweeping Promises also comes from a long creative lineage. Central duo Lira Mondal and Caufield Schnug, who wrote, produced, and mastered the record--performing everything but some drums, supplied by Spenser Gralla on “Falling Forward”--have previously played lo-fi surf as Silkies, dream pop with Mini Dresses, goth pop with Dee-Parts, and further post-punk with Splitting Image. Their musical partnership goes back over ten years under who-even-knows how many names, and if you have time to do some Googling, it’s the best kind of internet rabbit hole to fall down.
All of which is to say Mondal and Schnug have a long history of suddenly setting up shop in new aesthetic niches, and they know what they’re doing here. Their unique recording setup gives Hunger for a Way Out a singularly cloudy, vintage feeling, driven by punchy bass with swipes of synth and six-string. The guitar has a crushed, Dave Davies kind of distortion to it, like it was flattened under a cartoon anvil. The vocals are pure post-punk, with Mondal channeling strained nerves on the deviously catchy title track, and a more exaggerated, comical affectation on “Falling Forward,” with shades of Devo.
Her artful enunciation often turns her voice into one more instrument in the mix--see the driving intro to “Cross Me Out”--especially as it sticks into the album’s super-rigid rhythms. It’s one way Sweeping Promises craft subtle hooks in minimalist arrangements; Mondal turns “Atelier” into a five-syllable word and a hook unto itself. It’s also one way they manage to make stiffness a virtue. Deliberate, mid-tempo bass lines leave plenty of room for tracks to build up, break down, and fill in cracks with scattered seeds of melody.
The duo also know how to groove, as on “An Appetite,” with a blown-out backbeat and a jauntier bass feel; an energizing change of pace. The stiffness of Hunger for a Way Out gives it its distinctive edge and its most memorable moments, but on the flip side, it can also feel static. That it doesn’t feel more repetitive is a testament to their inventiveness, not to mention restraint. The record clocks in under a half-hour, and it’s mostly just a blast to hear Sweeping Promises drill down into such specific stylistic ground and play the hell out of it. I’m personally always partial to an album you can dance as well as twitch your eye to.