Art Is Dead Is Dead is an understandably disjointed but promising effort from Kent, Ohio's Sweetheart. The disc collects the band's now out-of-print two-song 7" as well as four previously unreleased songs. Apparently, most of the EP was recorded in a TV studio over the course of three days on the campus of KSU without permission and only fountain water to drink, and it shows; the band's angular, jutting and raw post-hardcore has a strange sense of urgency and thrown-togetherness about it. It's the kind of restrained complexity found in the early work of a band like such.

It's hard to draw comparisons but their guitar tone is, while not nearly as intricate, relatively similar to Hot Cross, noticably in a track like in the instrumental closer "I Truly Love You But I Cannot Sing..." Admittedly, the lead vocalist is indeed particularly not too strong, and seems best fit when attempting the sort of pseudo-melodic, laid back spoken word most "arty" bands occasionally go for. In "Don't Flatter Yourself, I Just Write Songs," he bears an uncanny resemblance to Brian Moss (the Ghost / Hanalei), singing "I only want to be attractive / 'coz I want to attract you / and I wish I were thin / Goddamn this body, so fat and crude / and I wish I were witty / and I want to be cluttered and patient too..."

Sweetheart definitely achieve the bookish, coffeehouse early post-hardcore sound they attempt in Art Is Dead Is Dead, but in an expected cohesion and next logical step on their full-length (due out later this year on the Perpetual Motion Machine), as well as a less muddled production assistance, they could definitely more easily whelm the listener as opposed to a marginal pique of interest.

MP3
Am I Saying 'Tight' Too Much?