Photo by Shawn Brackbill

Sweeping Promises are one of those bands who are sort of nowhere but also everywhere at once. We haven’t heard a note from the Lawrence, KS post-punks since their great 2023 breakthrough sophomore effort, Good Living Is Coming For You, but it’s not like they haven’t been busy building up the DIY community and producing music for the rising likes of Suitor either. To say that they’re back and fully recharged would be an understatement, however.

“Shooting Shadows”, the lead single from the duo of vocalist and bassist Lira Mondal and guitarist and producer Caufield Schnug’s new album, You Say I Romanticize, is as violent in its energy as far as art-punk goes. Wiping away a few layers of film off their surface, the cassette-melted sound adhered to Mondal on last heard is now exposed raw to a growl, and she’s coming at those mysterious figures lurking in the dark. “Don’t want ’em in my house / Don’t want you in my house / ‘Cause you could gun me down,” she exclaims over a friction frenzy of extra bent guitars (with a touch of shimmer,) one relentless, feral bassline, and wholly alive drums performed by touring drummer Spenser Gralla. Perhaps these shadows need to be the ones on watch, because Sweeping Promises are serving an absolute threat here.

Sweeping Promises’ You Say I Romanticize will be released August 14th on Sub Pop.