Sweeping Promises
- bizzarre
- 7 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Sweeping Promises announce new album 'You Say I Romanticize' on August 14th via Sub Pop & share new single "Shooting Shadows".
On Friday, August 14th, Sub Pop Records will be unbearably full of themselves to release You Say I Romanticize, the crucial new album from Sweeping Promises. Recorded over an 18-month period, You Say I Romanticize is a tribute to the chaos of creation and collaboration under shifting circumstances.
Guitarist Caufield Schnug and bassist/vocalist Lira Mondal found and tested themselves in their combination tour house and recording studio in Kansas, annually working on dozens of albums from other bands, hosting tour stops, planning shows, and the like. After an immersive process of tracking and whittling down YSIR demos and carving out an idiosyncratic chamber-recording method for the album’s intentional wall-of-sound, the duo brought in touring drummer Spenser Gralla to play the songs as the band would on stage.
The album’s frenzied execution, akin to the group’s renowned live show, prevails most of all in Mondal’s exhilarating vocals. Whereas previously, you might have heard a growl here and there on certain Sweeping Promises tracks, the band’s formidable singer shouts, roars, hits all sorts of tricky notes, and shreds her throat all over the record. Hear for yourself on the debut single and pummeling opener “Shooting Shadows.”
Sweeping Promises’ introduction to the global punk underground was their debut album, Hunger for a Way Out, one of the breakout successes in music during 2020’s pandemic lockdown. In 2023, they followed up with the acclaimed Good Living is Coming for You that saw guitarist/producer Caufield Schnug and bassist/vocalist Lira Mondal testing the limits of their home-recording resourcefulness as freshly minted Kansans – new place, new space. Now, the band is back with a frenetic new offering: You Say I Romanticize.
A shadow side exists along with Sweeping Promises’ love of their artistic community—borne of weirdos channeling their misfit status into vibrant art and punk rock music, often passing through the revolving door that is their home studio. You Say I Romanticize takes the art-by-any-means-necessary ethos Mondal and Schnug have developed over the years and turns the prompt upside-down, landing on a personality epidemic manifesting across all ten tracks.
A big theme of You Say I Romanticize is hinted at in its title. Taken from a lyric sung on driving album closer “Write Lightly”—a narrative about the importance of self-expression in writing being scrubbed away by “professional” concerns—many of the characters Mondal fleshed out here are outcasts, marginalized by society and morphed into longing fanatics. The personalities depicted on You Say I Romanticize are often writerly types; as writing is, by and large, an art of obsession. To wit, “Last Man,” by equal turns musically nervous and cathartic, is loosely inspired by the Mary Shelley work of (more or less) the same name, The Last Man—a dystopian 19th Century novel written in the wake of a cholera outbreak. Similarly, “My Anchoress” is resonant in its portrayal of 15th Century author Julian of Norwich—centered around her enduring Revelations of Divine Love (one of the earliest physical evidence of English-written works by a woman), which sensuously details visions she allegedly received from Christ.
Sweeping Promises have long been progenitors of concept-forward art-punk music that is remarkably immediate and irresistible. For being largely about personalities boxed in by isolation, You Say I Romanticize is carried by an outright soaring energy.
The band recently announced North American headlining tour dates for the autumn of 2026. The first leg begins on Wednesday, September 9th, in Oklahoma City, OK, and runs through September 27th in Denver, CO. The follow-up run begins on October 27th in Omaha, NE, and ends on November 18th in Nashville, TN.
This June, Sweeping Promises will also perform at Calgary’s Sled Island Music & Arts Festival. Further live dates, including international touring, will be announced soon. Tickets are available at sweepingpromises.com.
Photo by Shawn Brackbill
Tour dates
Sat. Jun. 20 - Calgary, ON - Sled Island Music & Arts Festival
Wed. Sep. 09 - Oklahoma City, OK - Resonant Head
Thu. Sep. 10 - Denton, TX - Rubber Gloves
Fri. Sep. 11 - Austin, TX - LEVITATION
Sat. Sep. 12 - San Antonio, TX - Paper Tiger
Tue. 15 - Phoenix, AZ - Rebel Lounge
Wed. Sep. 16 - San Diego, CA - Casbah
Thu. Sep. 17 - Los Angeles, CA - Sid The Cat Auditorium
Fri. Sep. 18 - San Francisco, CA - Rickshaw Stop
Sun. Sep. 20 - Portland, OR - Mississippi Studios
Tue. Sep. 22 - Vancouver, BC - Fox Cabaret
Wed. Sep. 23 - Seattle, WA - Baba Yaga
Fri. Sep. 25 - Boise, ID - Shrine Social Club Basement
Sat. Sep. 26 - Salt Lake City, UT - The DLC at Quarters
Sun. Sep. 27 - Denver, CO - Hi-Dive
Tue. Oct. 27 - Omaha, NE - Slowdown Front Room
Wed. Oct. 28 - St Paul, MN - Turf Club
Thu. Oct 29 - Milwaukee, WI - Cactus Club
Fri. Oct. 30 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle
Sat. Oct. 31 - Detroit, MI - Lager House
Tue. Nov. 03 - Toronto, ON - Monarch
Wed. Nov. 04 - Montreal, QC - La Sala Rossa
Fri. Nov. 06 - Boston, MA - Deep Cuts
Sat. Nov. 07 - Boston, MA - Deep Cuts
Sun. Nov. 08 - Hamden, CT, Space Ballroo
Tue. Nov. 10 - New York, NY - Club 101
Wed. Nov. 11 - Brooklyn, NY - Baby's All Right
Thu. Nov. 12 - Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church
Fri. Nov. 13 - Washington, DC - Union Stage
Sat. Nov. 14 - Richmond, VA - Cobra Cabana
Mon. Nov. 16 - Durham, NC - The Pinhook
Tue. Nov. 17 - Atlanta, GA - Masquerade Purgatory
Wed. Nov. 18 - Nashville, TN - DRKMTTR
You Say I Romanticize is now available for preorder on CD/LP/all DSPs worldwide from Sub Pop. LP preorders in the US at the Sub Pop Mega Mart will receive the limited Loser Edition on Black and Yellow Confetti vinyl and preorders through Mega Mart Europe will receive the Loser Edition on Magenta vinyl (UK/EU). The limited Loser Editions will also be available at your local record store (all limited-vinyl colors available while stock lasts!)
You Say I Romanticize follows the release of their acclaimed 2023 album Good Living Is Coming for You, which Rolling Stone described as “...relentlessly catchy, gloriously low-fi punk.” Good Living Is Coming For You also appeared on Pitchfork, and the BBC’s year-end lists, just to name a few.
