Sheer Mag: Playing Favorites review – euphoric expansion by one of today’s great American bands

(Third Man)
What started life as a disco EP designed to help the band through personal difficulties has evolved into a refined, joyful take on their distortion-lagged rock

In 2015, Philadelphia’s Sheer Mag released their second EP in collaboration with a tiny Brooklyn punk label. Its lead track, Fan the Flames, was one of those songs that just stops you in your tracks. It seemed to be rooted in music that had far less to do with punk than the mainstream hard rock that predominated when punk first reared its head: there was Thin Lizzy and quite possibly some Lynyrd Skynyrd in its unhurried sound, while lead guitarist Kyle Seely was audibly engaged in the kind of playing that would once have been approvingly referred to as “laying down” some “tasty licks”. But the sound was lo-fi and absolutely everything was caked in distortion, including the voice of Tina Halladay, a potent, soulful wail that, on closer inspection, was delivering a call-to-arms against unscrupulous landlords and gentrification. Between the classic rock references, the noise, the dextrous musicianship, the vocal delivery and the righteously pissed-off lyrics lurked the exciting sense that this was a band who weren’t quite like anyone else around at the moment, amplified by the fact that Sheer Mag didn’t do social media, or grant interviews to the press.

Since then, Sheer Mag have eased up on their media blackout and released two full-length albums that honed the sound found on Fan the Flames: retro-glancing rock of the hard – and, occasionally, soft – variety, noisy punk/garage aesthetics, political lyrics, killer guitar playing and Halladay’s equally killer voice. Both 2017’s Need to Feel Your Love and 2019’s A Distant Call come highly recommended – if you’re in the market for a vaguely New Wave of British Heavy Metal-influenced call for armed socialist revolution, hasten to the latter album’s Chopping Block – but Playing Favorites is a noticeably different beast. For one thing, it started life as a disco EP – an attempt, the band have suggested, to shake off personal difficulties through euphoric music. These origins are still intermittently audible on Playing Favorites, both in lyrics that deal with emotional upheaval – not least the death of Halladay’s abusive father – and in its sound. You hear disco during the breezy All Lined Up and the episodic Mechanical Garden, which slips from tough powerpop to orchestral interlude to intricate funk, complete with blazing guitar solo courtesy of Mdou Moctar. Moonstruck, meanwhile, dramatically diverts from its slide guitar-strafed country rock intro and heads euphorically towards the dancefloor, bearing a freewheeling melody that has a hint of the Jackson 5’s I Want You Back in its DNA.