Sweet Freedom – Divilmint
Lots of bands grind the cover game for years and years, playing the hits to fans in bars, at private parties, or at the state fair. Hours and hours of practice, honing the rough edges of a carefully curated group of songs, all to bring some much-deserved enjoyment to a drunken bachelorette party or someone’s employer’s happy hour event. It’s a good time (mostly, I’m speaking from experience) and you’re making money doing what you love after all.
Enter Kilkenny-based band Sweet Freedom (SF), who know all about the cover grind. As they put it, they’ve “completed cover band mode on the Expert setting several times over,” which means they’ve certainly closed out the night with “Hey Jude,” “Desperado,” or maybe even “Closing Time…” Probably too many times to count.
They’ve decided it’s time to “take a punt on the originals scene,” so we’ve been gifted with their latest offering, Divilmint. Released on Halloween of 2022, it’s a 12-song LP with a broad range of influences spanning all the way from The Beatles to ZZ Top (with a bit of Eagles… and doo-wop… and Paul Simon and Gloria Estefan tossed in).
As a five-piece, it’s no surprise that SF might have some lush instrumentation up their sleeves. This Irish quintet loves to play rock music in its many forms – whether that’s classic rock tinged; Irish-influenced; or a bit more pub-oriented. It depends on the song – believe it or not, these dudes ALL sing.
Opening song “Cromwellsfort Road” takes some cues from the sugary-sweet doo-wop hits of the 50s and 60s, layering lots of harmonies into its quick, 2:34 runtime. It’s a charmingly retro tune that is a slight outlier for the rest of the album but shines a light on this bands’ mindset regardless – they’re here to do what they want, and it works for them. Another album outlier (and certainly where the aforementioned ZZ Top nod comes from) is the standout blues-rock swagger of “Senpai,” full of slinky guitar noodling and squealing pinch harmonic flavor.
SF really hits their stride on the easy-going, salt-of-the-earth type of rock ‘n roll that populates Divilmint. When I say easy-going, I don’t mean boring – rather, the band is best at writing songs that go down easy, like a nice frosty beer. “Can’t Get Away From Your Love” is certainly an album highlight, bringing to mind bands like Foals or Two Door Cinema Club with its shuffling beat and jangly lead guitar riffing. Same goes for the fleeting “Learn From The Best,” which has one of the album’s best melodies with the verse’s ascending/descending hook.
My personal favorite moment on Divilmint is the piano-driven beauty of track three, “Boys of Ossory.” In a composition that could be an Bruce Springsteen or Bryan Adams hit in a different life, a forlorn piano taps out an absolutely crushing introduction before the band launches into an Americana-tinged song about being one of the boys… By Americana, of course, I mean unmistakably Irish – but in that folksy, bouncy, down-home sort of way. A close second is album closer, “Ordinary Girl,” which saunters its way into a sunny indie-rock jaunt after a heartfelt, piano-driven ballad intro.
It’s clear that Sweet Freedom had a lot of fun writing, arranging, and recording Divilmint, and that kind of energy is simply infectious. Check it out now via Spotify, Apple Music, and Bandcamp.
Categorised in: Album Reviews
This post was written by Nick Sessanna