Review Summary: Meet me in the street..
The first thing that comes to mind when listening to Sheer Mag’s proper full-length debut
Need to Feel Your Love is how the jagged lo-fi charm of their first three EP’s has flown the coop, replaced by a cleaner studio sheen. Led by the ragged croon of Tina Halladay,
Need to Feel Your Love is the sound of an upcoming rock band bashing it out in high definition. And for the most part, this scrappy bunch from Philly feel as exciting and refreshing as they first did a few years ago.
The quasi-disco bents of Pure Desire and the title track slink into your spine and oscillate there happily for the songs’ run. Propellant “Just Can’t Get Enough,” dancey dejection hymn “Suffer Me,” and the fervid closer “Sophie Scholl” are up to the band’s gritty standards. Short and sweet, they trot and lunge through one lean, angular riff after another. Like all their past work, you can put
Need to Feel Your Love on a party, dance up a storm, then stand there, red-faced and sweaty, feeling like it was all over too fast.
Still, this sort of primal rock n roll suffers somewhat from production gloss. Despite their uncanny ability to pen sharp, earworm riffs, Sheer Mag don’t really have the musical chops of the New York Dolls, Cheap Trick or any of the glam acts they’ve been linked to since their initiation. And so in the stark light of a big studio, a lot of these songs (Rank and File, Until You Find the Other One) lose steam soon after the first fiery on-rush.
In ways, the garage sensibilities of their EP’s were a better fit for Sheer Mag, if only aesthetically. Rock stars don’t look the way they used to anymore. Looking at Sheer Mag, you could confuse them with any number of thrift indie rockers kicking around nowadays. They may have nabbed the blueprints of Richards and Thunders, but there are no leather pants and silk headscarves flying ‘round here. Ripped denim and obscure band T-shirts is what you get. And like a lot of similarly lo-fi up-and-comers before them (insert countless Memphis and Michigan garage progeny), when you strip away all that foundation grain and fuzz, it sometimes leaves a band sounding wispy.
Regardless,
Need to Feel Your Love is another strong showing in the band’s growing catalogue, even if it doesn’t push them forward much. All pullbacks aside, Sheer Mag’s main strength, what first made them sound so vital and loveable, is still there. What lifts
Need to Feel Your Love past its limitations is the unabashed, giddiness-inducing feeling of a fresh, excited band having a lot of fun together.
