Sweetie

Dried Fly’s Blood
by Scott Hefflon

It’s rare that an unsigned band can release over an hour of music and not hear the groans even up in their ivory tower. But Sweetie has never been your average band. Actually, Sweetie has never even been the same band twice. Not in terms of membership (although I think the guitarist playing their record release at the Linwood is from Boy Wonder), but musical direction. Sweetie were some nightmare hybrid of soundbite collages, pop structural breakdown, and distorted ravings, but now they’ve streamlined to smooth, neo-trippy guitar & synth trancerock. Still utilizing Rob Zamarki’s crooning and bullhorn shouts along with Emily Unverferht’s icy angel-turned-howling-banshee wails, Sweetie still confuse as much as they entertain. Dried Fly’s Blood combines previously released material (most notably “Chopping the Cow in Apocalypse Now” and “Trouble on Chromosome 21” from Kill, Baby, Kill!, which sound rather simplistic in comparison to new songs such as “Incredible Shrinking Man is Dead”) and a cover of Alice Cooper’s “Welcome to my Nightmare,” which is subtly twisted, burying the dual vocals beneath a dripping flow of evil, discordant guitars until it culminates with the babbling pyschobabble punctuated by the demoness’ bug-eyed cackling. They combine a bit of fake Bowie-isms, some chillin’ whispered melodi-rapping, and a jaunty swagger that combines trip pop with Ministry’s Al Jorgy, but better dressed. Honestly, there’s no good way to describe Sweetie, but luckily they’ll sound completely different by the time you see them, so it doesn’t matter anyway.