WHERE THE HEART IS/VINYLE ROUGE SANG

Description

Sweet Pill from Philadelphia writes explosive emo songs that embrace the edges of pop and hardcore. The kind of band whose members are completely immersed in their local scene — through a handful of notable side projects and the Philadelphia 4333 Collective — the quintet's sound takes a broad influence from its environment. The result is a blend of complex song structures and flourishes of technical insight, completely indifferent to genre, yet evoking the specific styles of touchstones like Paramore and Circa Survive. On their debut album Where the Heart Is, Sweet Pill's raw and untamed energy is presented through ten autobiographical tracks that revolve around the elastic and captivating voice of singer Zayna Youssef, sometimes belting and controlled, other times textured and guttural. Youssef is supported by guitarists Jayce Williams and Sean McCall, bassist Ryan Cullen, and drummer Chris Kearney. Their first single "Blood" sees Youssef exploring a deteriorating friendship over the delicate riffs and counterpoint of Williams and McCall, with Cullen and Kearney agilely rumbling in the song's foundation. The second single "High Hopes" responds with introspective and melodic punk that reshapes anxiety rather than succumbing to it. But the third single "Diamond Eyes" momentarily slows the pace, with McCall joining Youssef on vocals for a breakup lament filled with acoustic sentimentality and an emotive burst from guest flutist Jill Ryan. Such range is the central facet of Where the Heart Is, where Sweet Pill's penchant for combining punkish tropes driven by the vibrancy of math-rock and the aggression of post-hardcore softened by pop sensibility composes something stylistically new yet still familiar.