SWEEPING PROMISES - YOU SAY I ROMANTICIZE LP

Sweeping Promises’ introduction to the global punk underground was their
debut album, Hunger for a Way Out, which ended up being one of the
breakout successes in music during pandemic lockdown. In 2023, they
followed up with Good Living is Coming for You, a satirical, hyper-critical
rebuke of capitalism that made Album of the Year lists for Pitchfork, NPR,
Paste, and BBC, just to name a few. Bassist/vocalist Lira Mondal and guitarist
Caufield Schnug decided to tilt their approach a few degrees forward on their
third LP.

The big theme of You Say I Romanticize is hinted at in its title. Coming from a
lyric sung on album closer “Write Lightly”—a narrative about the importance
of self-expression in writing being scrubbed away by “professional”
concerns—many of the characters singer/bassist Mondal fleshed out here
are outcasts, marginalized by society and turned into fanatics for a
cornucopia of specific causes.

The visceral songwriting on You Say I Romanticize features an equally visceral
musical approach. Sweeping Promises brought live drummer Spenser Gralla
into the recording sessions to give the songs a similar urgency to their live
show. The frenzy of its execution also materializes in Mondal’s vocal
performances.

A shadow side exists along with Sweeping Promises’ love of their artistic
community—borne of weirdos channeling their “outcast” status into vibrant
art and punk rock music. You Say I Romanticize takes the ethos Mondal and
Schnug have developed and explores the obsessive, fanatical aspects of
being ostracized and isolated by mainstream society