Schvendes – Sweet Talk Your Enemies

Schvendes – Sweet Talk Your Enemies

Sweet Talk Your Enemies – Schvendes

By Chris Peken

I’m pretty sure the approach taken by Schevendes and their feisty front-woman Rachael Dease is not what most outside of the S&M world would call sweet talk. Not since The Scientists have Perth produced something quiet so art-house raucous, so dark and penetrating. Indeed close your eyes listening to Sweet Talk Your Enemies and you could be in the long-defunct Trade Union Club circa 1988. The morbid and macabre imagery of Small Mercies Sweet Graves  ‘All your skin’s turning grey / The dirt’s a little warmer now’,  further cementing this impression. The gentler lilt of Bring Out the Dead provides important shading, albeit lighter shades of dark. Like their Eighties forebearers Schevendes cut their teeth on stage, and it shows. With their beginnings in Gothic art-house still evident Schevendes are a growing and evolving beast with plenty to offer those who shy away from the sun; and with this album they might even attract a smile or two from the tanned amongst us.

*** 1/2

 

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