Get the latest gossip

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

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

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. 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. So do the moments on Playing Favorites where Sheer Mag sound like they’re expanding outwards, either tonally – there appears to be a celeste on Tea on the Kettle; a tumbling acoustic guitar figure introduces the title track – or in leaning more towards pop.

Get the Android app