I love being surprised by a live show … and I’ll admit it’s becoming rarer and rarer as a music journalist of almost a decade, but one set that left me stupefied during Taverne Tour was from Kansas’ post-punk/no-wave rock group, Sweeping Promises. The combined vocal powerhouse and fuzzy bass riffs of Lira Mondal and the angular, adrenaline-punk guitar of Caufield Schnug was excellent. Schnug knows punk rock guitar like the back of his hand—sounding a bit like The Fall and Interpol smashed together. I also really enjoyed his antics of jumping and maintaining a healthy power stance throughout the set. He owned the universe.
I guess if I was doing my job right I would have done a bit of research before, seeing how the group is on Sub Pop … but I was very glad to go in cold. I’ll be checking out all of the current and future Sweeping Promises material in the near future.
