Sweepers / Gr3yboy / Dot Com Bubble / Nosedive
8:00 PM
8:45 PM
Philadelphia’s SWEEPERS’ “make weirdo punk based around themes of sweeping and cleaning, and use that as a jumping-off point for other subjects.” This, their debut album, offers up eighteen tracks of such lo-concept nonsense, in a way more exciting style than you might expect. Okay, so the speedy nerdcore of No Sleep, Yes Sweep, the clean (heh), fast punk of Clean Machine and closer Trash On Fire‘s propulsive hardcore are all great fun, but the rest… we’re talking jazz-punk madness, akin to MINUTEMEN slopping out with HEADACHE (the short-lived 90s Bradford crew). No punk churn or metallic chugging here; only two songs reach two minutes, with a bunch clocking in under sixty seconds.
From Rigged Roulette‘s herky-jerky jazz-punk, Take This Mop‘s breathless artcore, the more restrained I Sweep Myself‘s 70s US punk with discordant synth, to the wild-eyed schizophrenia of Dog (featuring an actual dog) and Sweep It Up‘s gleeful jazzcore-on-speed, a dizzyingly anarchic tone runs wild throughout this album. Elsewhere, the seemingly-improvised art-jazz-punk of Tom shines, the mock blues ending dusts off This Dirty House, dual slacker vocals elevate Broom To Dream, leaving the manic Street Sweeper and the minute, theatre-prog-punk of Broom Town to wreck the room so they can get the mops out all over again. A truly unexpected delight.