On Friday, June 30th, Sweeping Promises will release their second, latest and greatest album, Good Living Is Coming For You, on Feel It Records in North America and Sub Pop for the rest of the world. Today, the band is also sharing the colossal lead single and the album’s opening track “Eraser.”
Sweeping Promises’ members Lira Mondal and Caufield Schnug say “Eraser” is “a malevolent creep – an overly ambitious, shadowy force who bears an uncanny resemblance to you. She watches your every move, mirrors your motions, and ultimately uses your voice against you without you ever noticing what she’s done. She’s unchecked ambition, a paranoid girl Friday, an overriding impulse to reflect rather than project. She must be stopped at all costs.”
Good Living Is Coming For You was recorded and produced by Mondal and Schnug in their home studio in Lawrence, KS, and follows their 2020 debut, Hunger for a Way Out, and their insistent 2021 single, “Pain Without a Touch.” Coverage for both quickly followed from the likes of Stereogum (Band to Watch), Pitchfork (Selects), and NPR Music, who raved, “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 earworm 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…”
Confirmed Sweeping Promises North American tour dates in support of Good Living Is Coming For You begin on Tuesday, August 1st, in St. Louis, and run through to Wednesday, September 27th, in Denton, TX. Full tour dates are as follows…
Tue. Aug. 01 – St Louis, MO – Off Broadway
Wed. Aug. 02 – Cincinnati, OH – MOTR Pub
Thu. Aug. 03 – Nashville, TN – Blue Room at Third Man
Fri. Aug. 04 – Atlanta, GA – 529
Sat. Aug. 05 – Durham, NC – The Pinhook
Mon. Aug. 07 – Washington, DC – Songbyrd Music House
Tue. Aug. 08 – Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s
Thu. Aug. 10 – Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg
Fri. Aug. 11 – Brattleboro, VT – The Stone Church
Sat. Aug. 12 – Somerville, MA – Crystal Ballroom
Mon. Aug. 14 – Montreal, QC – Bar Le Ritz PDB
Tue. Aug. 15 – Toronto, ON – The Garrison
Wed. Aug. 16 – Cleveland, OH – Grog Shop
Fri. Aug. 18 – Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
Sat. Aug. 19 – Milwaukee, WI – Back Room at Colectivo
Sun. Aug. 20 – Minneapolis, MN – 7th Street Entry
Sat. Sep. 09 – Denver, CO – Lost Lake
Mon. Sep. 11 – Salt Lake City, UT – Kilby Court
Tue. Sep. 12 – Boise, ID – Neurolux
Thu. Sep. 14 – Vancouver, BC – Wise Hall
Fri. Sep. 15 – Seattle, WA – Madame Lou’s
Sat. Sep. 16 – Portland, OR – Doug Fir
Tue. Sep. 19 – San Francisco, CA – The Chapel
Wed. Sep. 20 – Los Angeles, CA – Lodge Room
Fri. Sep. 22 – San Diego, CA – Casbah
Sat. Sep. 23 – Tucson, AZ – Club Congress
Tue. Sep. 26 – Austin, TX – Empire Control Room
Wed. Sep. 27 – Denton, TX – Andy’s
Fri. Sep. 29 – Memphis, TN – Gonerfest
Good Living Is Coming For You is available now to preorder from Feel It Records & Sub Pop. LP pre-orders from Feel It Records will be on white/black marbled vinyl, and those from megamart.subpop.com will receive copies on red vinyl (while supplies last).
More on Sweeping Promises’ Good Living Is Coming For You:
For more than a half-century, underground music revolutionaries have taken a whack at the mundane mainstream like a piñata. England punks spat “NO FUTURE” at germ-free adolescents. Ohio new wavers devolutionized mankind with whips. Athens art school students chomped at hero worship. MetroCard-carrying riot grrrls rebirthed the bomp with a gasoline gut. In 2020, Sweeping Promises read our pandemic minds with Hunger for a Way Out. In 2023, they return with a new message: Good Living Is Coming For You. At first glance, this nouveau wave slogan offers hope wrapped around relief. At first listen, we realize this may actually be a warning. Darker still, a threat.
A band famous for their unfussy, monolithic anthems, Sweeping Promises elegantly ravage us again with another future classic. They return as a fist of velvet rose petals roaring inside a compact wrecking ball. Gone is the Boston brutalist ambience of their subterranean concrete laboratory and the revelatory single mic recording technique. In its place, a retired and resplendent nude painting studio in Lawrence, Kansas, bathed in light with high ceilings and hardwood floors. Guided once again by their surrounding architecture, a reverb-rich space remains the defining element at the heart of their highly stylized sound. A watery ghost from the golden age of art-punk now wields sharper knives and more microphones.
If the mood of HFAWO was hungry, GLICFY is RAVENOUS. In 2023, appetite is addressed in new ways: Power struggles are aired in “Eraser,” restraints are broken in “You Shatter,” anguished exclamations sting in “Good Living Is Coming for You.” The taboo subject of aging is (s)heroically dragged out into the open. Every line is delivered with such joyous, soaring layers that each punch lands like a chef’s kiss.
Sweeping Promises are Lira Mondal and Caufield Schnug. A chance meeting in Arkansas led to a decade of playing in an eclectic assortment of projects together. Their relentless practice made perfect. Bass playing Lira is an emotive bolt of thunderous energy with the iconic blast of a girl group rolled into one robust throat. Caufield is an intentional guitar player and drummer. No note or hit is extraneous. Together they are meticulous sound engineers, using space as a key ingredient to their distinct sound. Controlling every aspect of their craft, from the first note they write together all the way through to the final mastering process, each record is an unspoiled fingerprint unique to their dynamic chemistry.
Written before the pandemic, Hunger for a Way Out was released on Feel It Records in the summer of 2020. These songs drip with the anxious urgency of a commanding live performance yet their gauzy production transports us like the fading memory of a favorite song. This distorted sense of time resonated with thousands of quarantined listeners who turned the album into a life-saving floatation device and most beloved album of the year. This is when Feel It Records (North America) and Sub Pop (everywhere else) joined forces to divide/unite and conquer; beginning with the 2021 single “Pain Without a Touch” and now carrying through to Good Living Is Coming For You.
Good Living Is Coming For You ultimately reflects being thrust into a severely unpredictable world. A capsized boat isn’t entirely bad. In fact, it can be the necessary push toward finding solid ground. -Tracy Wilson (Courtesy Desk)