Sheer Mag: Compilation (Vinyl LP)

Sheer Mag's Compilation LP features the Philadelphia rock band's three 7-inch records, released between 2014 and 2016. All 12 songs were recorded onto the same vintage 8-track tape machine, as it was carted to various locations around Philadelphia. The first two were produced in a makeshift studio wedged between two bedrooms in the band's former South Philly house. The third came out of a practice space in the Port Richmond neighborhood.

Sequenced chronologically, the newly remastered songs reveal a young DIY band finding its sound. Sheer Mag are the only band of recent times that manages to sound like a mix of a classic Seventies rock record, power pop and an obscure English DIY 7" from the late 70's. Everything sounds scrappy, fuzzy and scuzzy and it's all the better for it. The riff packed guitar work and fuzzed female vocals sit perfectly together whilst the crude rhythms just adds bounce and basic beats.

History has shown that the greatest bands–bands with that certain, ever elusive quality called lasting power–neither conform to nor buck the trends of their time, but rather force the times to catch up to them. Sheer Mag has such lasting power in droves. After almost a decade spent carving out a career that has already become the stuff of modern underground legend, the band’s new stand-alone single, “All Lined Up,” comes alongside the announcement of their signing to Third Man Records–their first partnership with a larger independent label–who will also be physically and digitally re-releasing the entirety of Sheer Mag’s back-catalogue, including their cult-beloved early EPs I (2014), II (2015), and III (2016), as well as their first two breakthrough LPs, Need To Feel Your Love (2017) and A Distant Call (2019).

Sheer Mag’s sensibility, as fervently beloved by baseball-tee clad garage rockers and tattoo-less indie kids as it is by leather-and-stud-loyal punks, finds its strength in an unconventional mixture of refined complexity and straight-forward pop prowess. Seamlessly trading between head-turning guitar heroics and a charmingly timeless blend of disco, hard rock, and garage inflected hooks, Sheer Mag’s oft-referenced, never-replicated sound has played an undeniably large role in stoking the current resurgence of interest power-pop forward rock music. While quickly adopted as a fan-favorite amongst the sweat-caked crowds of the early 2010’s underground, time has attested to Sheer Mag’s singular cultural mutability: though never straying too far from their home-town Philadelphian origins.

1. What You Want
2. Sit and Cry
3. Point Breeze
4. Hard Lovin'
5. Fan the Flames
6. Travelin' On
7. Whose Side Are You On
8. Button Up
9. Can't Stop Fighting
10. Worth the Tears
11. Night Isn't Bright
12. Nobody's Baby