Need to Feel Your Love

by 
AlbumJul 14 / 201712 songs, 42m 41s
Power Pop Garage Rock
Popular Highly Rated

Between 2014 and 2016, Philadelphia’s Sheer Mag announced themselves with three EPs that explosively bonded lo-fi punk energy, stadium-sized hooks and Tina Halladay’s gale-force voice. Both political and personal, this full debut returns to that base formula while broadening their sonic palette too. Opener “Meet Me in the Streets” is a typically bracing, riffed-up call for revolution, but the band’s impeccable songcraft also lets them venture into swaggering funk (“Need to Feel Your Love”) and heartbroken, jangling folk (“Until You Find the One”) with highly satisfying results.

A tear in the firmament. Beyond the noxious haze of our national nightmare - as structures of social justice and global progress topple in our midst - there lies a faint but undeniable glow in the distance. What is it? Like so many before us we are drawn to the beacon. But only by the bootstraps of our indignation do we go so boldly into the dark to find it. And so SHEER MAG has let the sparks fly since their outset, with an axe to grind against all that clouds the way. A caustic war cry, seething in solidarity with all those that suffer the brunt of ignorance and injustice in an imbalanced system. Both brazen and discrete, loud yet precise, familiar but never quite like this - SHEER MAG crept up from Philadelphia cloaked in bold insignia to channel our social and political moment with grit and groove. Cautious but full of purpose. What is it? By making a music both painfully urgent and spiritually timeworn, SHEER MAG speak to a modern pain: to a people that too feel their flame on the verge of being extinguished, yet choose to burn a bit brighter in spite of that threat. With their debut LP, the cloak has been lifted. It is time to reclaim something that has been taken from us. Here the band rolls up their sleeves, takes to the streets, and demands recompense for a tradition of inequity that's poisoned our world. However, it is in our ability to love - our primal human right to give and receive love - that the damage of such toxicity is newly explored. Love is a choice we make. We ought not obscure, neglect, or deny that choice. Through the tumult and the pain, the camaraderie and the cause, the band continues to burn a path into that great beyond. But where are we headed? On NEED TO FEEL YOUR LOVE, they makes their first full-length declaration of light seen just beyond our darkness. Spoken plainly, without shame: It is love. This - is SHEER MAG. Music by Sheer Mag Produced by Hart Seely Mixed by Hunter Davidsohn at Business District Recordings Mastered by Josh Bonati at Bonati Mastering NYC Released by Wilsuns Recording Company WRC-092

54

8.0 / 10

On their debut LP, Sheer Mag keep biting at the forbidden fruit of 1970s hard rock. They dance the line between proto-metal and power pop on songs about romantic obsession and societal oppression.

C

After three brilliant EPs, the Philadelphian punks Sheer Mag unleash their debut, and it’s a hard rocking classic with a big heart.

6 / 10

Sheer Mags debut album Need To Feel More Love is a retro-fueled affair that feels like it belongs in the past as much as it does in the present.

9.1 / 10

12 songs that match the fire and quality of those EPs, even as they've shed some lo-fi grime.

‘Need to Feel Your Love’ is an album that not only shreds, but feels prescient, too.

Sheer Mag remain one of punk’s most promising prospects on their long-awaited debut full-length album.

9 / 10

Need to Feel Your Love

6.5 / 10

Sheer Mag have built their reputation on monster guitar licks (think Thin Lizzy and AC/DC), a true DIY aesthetic, and the powerful, melodic caterwaul of lead singer Tina Halladay.

(Static Shock)

9 / 10

After their early EPs were collected together earlier this year the Philadelphia garage-punks release their debut album 'Need To Feel Your Love'.

Sheer Mag has created an album on which even their breeziest hooks drip with tension and rage.

8.5 / 10

Review of 'Need To Feel Your Love' by Sheer Mag: Sheer Mag finally break through the LP barrier and our review decides if it was worth the wait.

90 %

Sheer Mag’s debut is one of the year’s absolute best.

Album Reviews: Sheer Mag - Need To Feel Your Love

7 / 10