A time of transition in the music industry, the late 90s / early 00s claimed any number of independent artists who, hitherto able to make their way (albeit unsteadily), suddenly found their position to be financially unviable. Particularly volatile was the post-punk / post-hardcore scene that bubbled under the musical surface of the US music industry – the sort of bands that often found themselves on labels like Hydra Head – and here we have a case in point. Founded in 2002, Sweetheart hurtled out of Ohio, playing hundreds of shows before collapsing under the weight of it all. The band, allied with Missouri-based label Expert Work Records, left behind a self-released 7” and an EP titled Art Is Dead, neither of which Label founder Justin Nardy believed to be their best work. When, later, he discovered the band had recorded a pair of records – an album and a single-track, 12-minute-long EP, both recorded in 2005 and then left unreleased, he decided to finish what was started nearly twenty years ago.
The Process of Making Us Well
Not many bands have the gall to release a single, lengthy track as an EP. Sonic Youth (well, obviously), did it with The Diamond Sea and Mogwai with My Father My King – respectable company for any band to keep. At any event, Sweetheart operate in similar sonic territory, the track slowly building over a skeletal guitar figure underpinned by subtle toms, but always with the threat of violence lurking behind those opening minutes. When, some four minutes in, the tempo starts to ramp up, there’s a ramshackle air to the recording (before everything was placed on the unholy grid of metronomic accuracy) that threatens to either erupt or fall apart completely. Fortunately, the band opt for the latter angle and, out of the darkness comes a single, screeching vocal, buried beneath the slew of noise, but audible enough to recognise that that the singer’s vocal cords are stretched to breaking point. With all four members credited as vocalists, it comes as no surprise that, as the intensity continues to ramp up, so a series of vocals trip over one another, forming a convincing cacophony, before it all breaks down and we’re left with a dreamy passage that fools the listener into thinking they’ve hit the coda, before a final explosion of white hot noise brings the track to an end.
Tracked with admirable rawness, The Process Of Making Us Well has both the spontaneity and the intensity of a live recording. Far from perfect, it feels as if the band recorded it right on the edge, Ahmed Gallab’s drums frequently threatening to fall down, before being snatched back at the last minute. It’s that sense of unpredictability that keeps you hooked, and it’s a reminder of how much has been lost by studios and producers adopting a single set of tools and rules for how a recording should sound. Abrasive and urgent, The Process of Making Us Well is a must for those who find worship at the altar of Botch, Mogwai, and ISIS. 8/10
The Unbearable Tightness of Being
Following the short, dusty introduction of Our West (Intro), the band showcase a very different set of dynamics on the surging post-hardcore of Talking Tall. Reminiscent of bands like McLusky and Urusai Yatsura, who were whipping up a similar storm on this side of the pond, the band’s modus operandi here is lightning speed guitars, multi-layered vocals tripping over one another, and Ahmed’s splenetic percussive blasts. Melody, such as it is, is largely devolved to the deftly interwoven guitars of Bryan Parker and Michael Howard, who assault their instruments with single-minded ferocity, but it’s the spaces between the riffs that make the songs so interesting. Take the seven-minute Fuck Purgatory as a case in point. While it opens with a wall of noise, the band soon strip it down to a competition between Ahmed and bassist Greg Lofaro and, when the guitars do return, it’s in a more restrained form, the crystalline figures giving the track a gleaming diamond edge that cuts in a different way. With the song progressing at a leisurely pace, taking in a mix of mesmerising post-rockj and brutal post hardcore, you’re left with a strong impression that Sweetheart deprived us of their presence too soon.
That sense is only reinforced by the bruising, slow-motion assault of 1579, which offers some truly unique guitar patterns, the band once again showing an ability and a sense of imagination that might have taken them far had the right opportunity presented itself. The first half of the album concludes with the skittish post-hardcore of To Thine Own Selves be Dudes, which has a strong At The Drive In vibe to its acrobatic riff contortions.
The second half kicks off with the short, yet still dynamic This Tour Shall Pass, where feral noise trades blows with moments of eerie calm. More interesting is the elastic riffing of Viva Eternity, a fast-paced track where the distorted vocals belie the strong sense of melody embedded within the song. The band adopt an entirely different posture on the eight-minute epic, Fuck Hindsight (Whaling), which offers cleaner vocals, post-rock ambiance, and an emotional undercurrent that is impossible to ignore. It may build to a monolithic climax, with the guitars raging, but the band resist the temptation to unleash harsher vocals, and the piece emerges as one of the album’s most affecting tracks. The album concludes with one last piece, the harder-edged Puppies Don’t Have Wheels. It’s a solid song, but honestly, the album would have been the better for finishing on the emotional high of the preceding track, with Puppies placed elsewhere in the sequence.
Minor sequencing issues notwithstanding, The Unbearable Tightness Of Being is an incredibly strong record that deserved more than to be buried for twenty years, even if the band’s reasons were laudable. However, what is most notable is how little it has aged. Perhaps because the recording is raw and authentic, it is the spirit of the band that draws the attention, and it’s clear that Sweetheart had something very special going on. The band may not have achieved the recognition they deserved in 2005 but, with Expert Work Recordings offering an opportunity for Sweetheart’s unsung masterpiece to be heard, fans of ambitious post hardcore should flock to this release. 9/10
