Sweeping Promises "Hunger For A Way Out" CS (2020)

Details: Sweeping Promises acclaimed album, "Hunger For A Way Out," on Feel It Records, reissue, originally released in 2020. Cassette comes as a pro-duplicated green cassette edition of 500. Includes 5-panel J-card with lyrics + d/l card. Housed in silver-backed case. New stock.

Description: "Straight from the depths of an unused Boston-area concrete laboratory comes the debut of Sweeping Promises. Written and recorded with a patented "single mic technique" just before quarantine, "Hunger for a Way Out", is a post-punk leaning gem of unpolished DIY sound. The title track kicks things off in absolutely classic fashion, full of spirited hooks that echo the early Rough Trade sound. Angular guitars and sharp synth notes float atop a raw rhythm section, while Lira Mondal's effervescent vocals truly define Sweeping Promises' sound. There's something simple yet otherworldly about these tracks--you have the DIY prowess of Kleenex/LiLiPUT and Girls at Our Best!, a brooding new wave-y minimal synth sound woven in, and an undeniable pop-leaning appeal captured in vibrant monaural glory. It's hard to mistake these ten tracks of naturally urgent and driving post-punk for anything other than sheer brilliance. Sweeping Promises deliver in spades on "Hunger for a Way Out". Packaged in a full-color jacket with risograph lyric insert designed by D.H. Strother.

NPR Music says of Sweeping Promises’ debut Hunger for a Way Out, “Sometimes the best pop songs stick to the basics: no muss, no fuss. With the Sweeping Promises, they add some fuzz. The same way the Pixies wrote pop songs with a nasty sheen, this Boston post-punk band dirties up earwormy melodies with a lo-fi charm. You can play spot the influence all over this debut: Young Marble Giants here, Kleenex/LiLiPUT there, some B-52s, and Blondie for good measure. Lira Mondal has a voice that leaps and bounds with the enthusiasm of a bedroom performance, hairbrush in hand. But mostly you can hear a band dream out loud, and, as the album title suggests, Hunger for a Way Out.” 

NME adds, “At a desolate intersection of post-punk and new wave stands Boston-based revivalists Sweeping Promises, with a debut album custom-built for jangly lo-fi apologists with angular discord and indie-pop fizz. Hunger for a Way Out comes into a world in which Debbie Harry is a style icon for the Stranger Things-generation and once-underground Belarusian punks Molchat Doma are on TikTok. There’s a new cross-appeal for this riff-ready rock with eyes in its back, both lo-fi but searingly tight and well-produced, anthemic and experimental.”

Grade: M (new stock)

TRACK LISTING SIDE A:

A1. Hunger For A Way Out
A2. Cross Me Out
A3. Blue
A4. Out Again
A5. Safe Now

TRACK LISTING SIDE B:

B1. Falling Forward
B2. Upright
B3. Atelier
B4. An Appetite
B5. Trust