Review: The Sweeplings twists together life’s sorrow, tragedy, and hope on self-titled album

The Sweeplings‘ thorny, skin-pricking songwriting evokes the classics. It’s both steeped in the past, perfectly simmering, and hooked into the present, with an undercurrent of ephemeral beauty. The duo’s new self-titled album ebbs and flows with time, sometimes riddled with tragedy and pain, and emerges as a wondrously celestial storyboard. Cam and Whitney’s voices tangle and have never sounded so clear, moving, and pronounced. The Sweeplings arrives as a statement piece, a manifesto about their lives and how the darkest times guide our trembling hands.

Oftentimes dazzling and cosmic, 11 songs root very much in death, rotted and limp, while also allowing renewal to break from its cacoon. “I could never call this closure,” Cam sings with a sigh on “Fever Running Loose.” Drums cascade down around her voice, an avalanche of sound that coats the emotional heft. Such are the strings stitched into the album, so much agonizing over the misery that squeezes the heart in a way that leaves one lifeless and cold. But therein lies the magic. The album’s thesis is best summed up by this line in “Drag Me Deeper (oh no)”: “Caught between the truth and all the things that leave me haunted.”

Their lives have been forever seared with catastrophe, stemming from the deaths of their fathers, an unimaginable unraveling that has left them in tatters. “Without You” captures the fragility of not only life itself but their own hearts. And in those moody, shadowy places within, they settle upon a body of work that doesn’t skimp on the sadness of which life is made. There is joy, that’s to be sure, but we can only appreciate such brightness when the clouds roll in and we’re drenched in a torrential downpour.

“Honey, how you’re haunting me with no mercy,” the duo sings in the wind-bending “No Mercy.” Cam and Whitney push their voices to the edge of a terrible precipice. Darkness swirls at their feet, but they quickly back away as soon as they approached. Careening backward, they soon learn the benefits of undergoing such destruction. They emerge far stronger than they ever were before. The grief they feel may never completely dissipate, but through the album, they’re able to handle it better and with greater care.

Breathy and brittle, The Sweeplings freezes time for just a brief moment. It’s the duo’s magnum opus, so eloquent their woods sprout from deep inside. “This goodbye just for awhile / It’s been a thrill,” sings Cam, her words falling like hollow roses in the finale, “Farewell.” They bid adieu to their loved ones, as though they’re finally ready and able to let go. Their vocals are weighted down, yet seem to flutter up to the skies like smoke curling from a campfire.

The Sweeplings excel on every front, from their tender, soul-crushing songwriting to vocal performances that mark the skin like a branding iron. Love also makes its presence known, as evidenced by “Can I Have Forever with You” and “Just Like That.” It’s within these glimmers that the duo can move forward in their lives, even though the pain may never shake from their bones. With 11 songs, they leave such an impression that it’s hard to ignore. Their latest LP is unequivocally among the best of 2023. Don’t miss it.

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