Seventies hard rock is like the trans fat of popular music—something the masses once gorged on freely and gluttonously, but which has since come to be viewed as being not all that good for us. From the derisive misogyny, to the skeezy sexual objectification (of minors, no less), to the thinly veiled racism and homophobia the music engendered during the disco-sucks witch trials, hard rock’s anachronistic qualities are as much philosophical as musical. And yet, it remains a forbidden fruit we just can’t resist, with artists both mainstream and underground forever drawing from its trough of pelvic-thrusting riffs, gooey twinned-guitar leads, and shout-it-out-loud hooks. Because, at the end of the day, we all just want to feel as good as the people who made ’70s hard-rock songs felt.
Harboring arena-sized dreams in their DIY-hardcore hearts, Philadelphia’s Sheer Mag have been on a mission to transform junk-food rock into something nourishing and nutritious. And they do this by reminding us of a fact we tend to forget when we see our ’70s heroes clinking champagne glasses at Rock & Roll Hall of Fame galas or embarking on cruise-ship tours: that this was once the music of clock-punchers and outcasts, and of lonely, bullied kids who, by blasting “God of Thunder” in their poster-plastered bedrooms, could imagine what it would feel like to fight back.
That Sheer Mag render their hi-fi fantasies in compact, boomboxed dimensions is not so much an act of punk-schooled subversion or even necessarily a reflection of their modest recording budgets. As guitarist Kyle Seely once explained to Rolling Stone, “We just like that range of fidelity.” Sheer Mag understand that, even though the music they love is often referred to as arena rock, it was more often first experienced through cheap transistor radios, chewed-up 8-tracks, and beaten-up vinyl spinning on Radio Shack Realistic record players.
But warped fidelity isn’t the only thing that separates Sheer Mag from the golden gods of the ’70s. In singer Tina Halladay, they possess a denim-vested, raspy-voiced dynamo who (with the help of co-lyricist/guitarist Matt Palmer) can elevate retro-rock tropes into fiery protest music for the here and now. Arriving hot on the heels of their early EPs compilation, the band’s first proper full-length, Need to Feel Your Love, plays like a Dazed and Confused soundtrack set against a backdrop of Trump-age anxiety instead of carefree Carter-era optimism. On the opening “Meet Me in the Street,” Halladay repurposes the cocksure posturing of an old Ratt lyric as an invitation to the sort of inner-city gathering where the bottles are filled with burning gasoline instead of booze—and where hard rock is both the rabble-rousing soundtrack of choice and something to hurl at the encroaching riot police. But if that song is meant to leave bruises, with others they intend to draw blood: On “Expect the Bayonet,” the gerrymandering that undermined the popular vote in last fall’s election becomes grounds for a violent coup, as the song’s pin-pricked, in-the-pocket guitar melody mimics a gently jabbing blade.
But Sheer Mag’s bilious contempt for the powers that be is always chased by sweet, honey-dipped hooks. Like the band’s first three EPs, Need to Feel Your Love continues to dance along the line separating proto-metal and power pop, but leans more often toward the latter. Bassist Hart Seely’s slightly crisper production lets you better savor the jangly acoustic strums underpinning the power chords, while liberating Halladay’s singing from the payphone fidelity of those earlier recordings. But the cleaner presentation only amplifies the natural grit in her voice—on soot-covered gems like “Just Can’t Get Enough” and “Rank & File,” Halladay comes on like Jennifer Herrema’s feistier little sister, while the band deliver a refined raunch like a Royal Trux whose spirit animal is Dwight Twilley instead of Keith Richards.
Having already struck the right balance of melody and menace at this early stage in their career, Sheer Mag are now eager to get a head start on another ‘70s rock rite of passage: the inevitable disco dalliance. On the title track and “Suffer Me,” the band’s usual Camaro-revving thrust downshifts into slow‘n’low grooves, while the riffs get melted down into a crystalline, sundazed twang from the Mac DeMarco-via-Dean Ween playbook. If the two songs follow similar templates, their subject matter contrasts sharply: the former is a beautifully aching plea to reignite an old flame; the latter is an unflinching account of the 1969 Stonewall riots and the struggles for acceptance that LGBT people still experience a half-century later. (“There’s a fear you can’t define,” Halladay laments, “there’s no peace and there’s no crime in living this way.”) But for Sheer Mag, there’s no difference between personal and political songs—they’re both natural products of the same bruised heart and worried mind. Whether Halladay is singing about romantic obsession or societal oppression, her need for the former only intensifies as the threat of the latter looms larger.
The cover of Need to Feel Your Love shows an airplane navigating dark, stormy skies toward a bright break in the clouds. On one level, it’s a Nevermind-like allegory of a band on the cusp of busting out of the underground to the potentially wider audience that awaits on the other side. It’s also emblematic of Sheer Mag’s desire to power us through these turbulent times toward better days—but they can’t say with certainty if those clouds are parting or closing in. Need to Feel Your Love closes on a sobering note with the melancholic jangle pop of “(Say Goodbye to) Sophie Scholl,” an ode to the White Rose Movement activist executed by the Nazis in 1943 at age 21. In Scholl, Halladay clearly sees an inspirational role model for today’s anti-fascist resistance, but her voice is also imbued with an audible sadness that such a song still needs to be sung in 2017—in America, no less: “It seems so strange/The blind constrictions and nascent pain/The contradiction from which we came.” It’s a long way from the boisterous, brick-tossing battle cries we hear at the start of the record. But when Halladay caps the song’s bittersweet chorus with “don’t forget your white rose,” she reminds us that despair is ultimately the energy source that fuels our ire.
