Album #254: Sweeping Promises – Hunger for a Way Out

• Released: 2020
• Origin: Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Label: Feel It
• Best Track: Out Again

I saw this album recommended on a Facebook fan page for Girls in Synthesis, whose debut album Now Here’s an Echo from Your Future I’m liking more and more with each listen.

Hunger for a Way Out is the debut album from Boston post-punk duo Sweeping Promises (I think they’re just a duo, but not certain). It was released last month, but sounds like it could have come out any time since about 1978!

It’s kind of simple, yet driving and effective. The guitars are muffled and garagey, but the vocals are pretty poppy, reminding me of Debbie Harry, and from what I read, the band make no secret of The Slits being a major influence.

There’s no bad track on this album, and it’s perhaps a three-way tie for my favourite – the menacing ‘Upright’, the very danceable ‘An Appetite’, and the infectious ‘Out Again’.

With the title and claustrophic sound, it’s actually one of the most fitting attempts I’ve heard at capturing the inertia of lockdown, whether that was intentional or not. A fine effort, and well worth half an hour of your time.