At this point all references to new-wave have to be seen as a misnomer; the wave has crested, and is certainly no longer new. On Sweeping Promises’ new LP Good Living Is Coming For You we get a revival of a revival. Here’s an album that would slot comfortably into the mid-’00s post-punk resurgence. After the recent Meet Me In The Bathroom documentary the cyclical swing of genres has placed this sound en vogue, which is convenient for the Kansas-based duo.
Fittingly for an album recorded in a “nude painting studio”, there’s a stripped quality to many of the tracks. This is born out of a DIY simplicity that sees reverb-laced guitar, bass and drums respond to each other. On ‘Eraser’ there are spiky stabs to the fretboard as drums clatter from right to left. With Lira Mondal’s searing vocals tearing through the mix the combination makes for some pleasingly primal dance-punk. ‘Petit Four’ plays shimmering tropical guitars against dusty rolls of bass, with the scorched vocal outro Mondal sets a spark to ignite sticky summer evenings.
Most fun is the album’s centrepiece ‘Walk In Place’; a track that begins by strutting with a Beth Ditto-esque verse, before warping into a slower time signature and then jumping back into the original groove. Sweeping Promises winningly embrace the ramshackle sound Palberta specialise in, and do so with aplomb. Over the course of the record 50 demos were completed and it sounds like at least four of them ended up here.
Wasn’t it said that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago? And the second-best time to release your second new-wave record is now.
