Album Out Now
Track Listing
- Sunrise
- Postcards
- Walleye Jean
- Broken Truth
- Smile
- Flowers
- London Road
- Long way round
- Heartlands
- Let the side down
Click to listen
The Guardian
8 May 2007 - Live review
Struggling to tune his guitar, he quips: "One day I'll have little men in black suits scurrying on, handing me £2,000 guitars."
However, the intensity arrives with his music: deeply felt, brooding songs rich in imagery. With fingers plucking magical hooks from the tuneless acoustic, McSweeney sings of lives on the margins: about being thrown out of pubs and phoning a friend who is never there, or asserting his identity by "pissing" his name in the snow. He sounds like a cross between Tim Buckley, Leonard Cohen and, implausibly, a male Tracy Chapman.
The imposing man with the delicate beard and straggly hair has reason to be cheerful. After two years honing his craft - sometimes with his band, the Gents - his career is taking off. He releases his debut single, Postcards, in June, and has a regional following big enough to cause congestion issues in the fabled pub where the Arctic Monkeys were signed. The audience are hushed to the point of near-trance by Postcards and Flowers, and profound lines like "city life is wearing thin ... and so is my skin". At one point, McSweeney lets forth a Jim Morrison primal howl, showing what a powerful force his usually restrained voice can be.
McSweeney won't have it easy - in a field that ranges from Fionn Regan to James Morrison, the male singer-songwriter genre is possibly pop's most difficult market to break - but he has the tools to make a huge impact. He starts by earning what he says is an unexpected encore. "Get used to it!" somebody shouts
Dave Simpson
Drowned in Sound
22 July 2006 - Live review
Another of Sheffield's hidden gems, Neil McSweeney picks up an acoustic guitar and proceeds to invest every inch of his six-foot-something frame into delivering a collection of songs so subtle and well crafted you can't help but be drawn into his lo-fi world.
Backing band The Gents soon join him, providing an understated accompaniment to McSweeney's magnetic stage presence. There's an intensity about the performance of the bespectacled songwriter, visually a cross between Jesus and John Lennon, that shares a common cause with troubadours du jour Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, though the music is more rootsy, traditional, folk in nature. Songs like 'Postcards' and 'London Road' are meant to be heard on a winter's evening, mug of coffee in hand and snow on the ground, but even in the height of summer they deserve much wider acclaim.
Rob Webb
Sandman Magazine
June 2006 - Album review
You know those albums that seep in? The ones that stand rapid, repeated listens, even though at the time you're not consciously aware what you're doing? The ones where you catch yourself humming tunes or snatches of lyrics with no idea where they're from and then it suddenly clicks? Well, 'Remember To Smile' is most definitely one of them.
It's not a happy album, but then neither is it pessimistic. It has something of the melancholy of Nick Drake about it, but tempered with what is almost alt country and shot through with the feeling that even sadness must be celebrated. Standout tracks range from plaintive solo acoustic numbers such as Sunrise through to London Road, where backing band The Gents add a real understated beauty as McSweeney sings 'we go rolling down the London road / though we know it's not the best way home / sat on a corner staring at our shoes / sick to my guts for the love of you'.
If you have even a passing interest in anything less uptempo than Abba taking speed with the Venga Boys, this is an album you will love.
Seth Tempo