Salinas (2025)
Sweet Harm are proving to be a difficult band to write about in the short time I've been listening to their debut album Certain Sun. I find it equally intriguing and frustrating, at times wanting to like it more than I do, while also wondering if I'm trying to hard to like it when I don't. It's a good album, but there's something holding it back for me.
We've got your standard rock music line up. Two guitars, a bass and some drums. The music they are creating is warm and easy to listen to. There's a good base of guitar fuzz, complimented by a little jangle in all of the right places. We're talking predominantly mid tempo indie that's fast enough to not get boring, while also being mellow enough to not step all over itself or get too punk for its own good.
I think what keeps this album from growing on me is the vocals. The bulk of the singing is handled by Dominic Armao. He has a conversational singing style that sometimes reminds me of a less whimsical Stephen Malkmus. His vocal melodies often verge away from where you think they should be considering the music he's singing over. There are times where that's interesting, but there are also times where it sounds like he's singing a different song than the rest of the band is playing.
Kate Larson is the group's other vocalist. She takes the lead on two tracks, and provides backing vocals on the others. Again, I struggle as to what to say about them as they're difficult to hear on most of the album. She seems so buried in the mix that you can mostly only pick up on faint echoes of backing vocals here and there. This mixing decision is also noticeable on the two songs that she takes the lead on, they're just so different from when Dominic is singing, as he's way louder.
And that's where I struggle. It's a pretty good record, but the vocals don't really do it for me. I'm not sure if it's the way everything was put together after the fact, or if these are intentional decisions that the group is making. At the end of the day, this one's just not for me.
Sweet Harm - Certain Sun:
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