GOOD SWEAT

Vinyl LP pressing. ManDancing is well aware of the space theyAEve taken up. Debut album Everyone Else and brisk follow-up Hands on 3 remained hyperfocused on their Jersey hometown landmarksuditched house shows, a recycling bin overflowing with crushed cans, the hypnotic pull of the Atlantic. YesterdayAEs version of the band stood largely tethered to vocalist and rhythm guitarist Stephen G KellyAEs transformative anguish. Songs wrapped around his rapturous vocals, combusting and climbing in sync with his shouts. The Good Sweat, the bandAEs sophomore LP, showcases the fruits of collaborative effort, catharsis, and closure for some of the most affecting, well-rounded moments in a catalog of layered character work. When given space to grow, the quintet multiplies their most engrossing elements. While maintaining much of the nylon-string nuance that gained them comparisons to Bright Eyes and Manchester Orchestra, The Good Sweat is propulsive and noisy by design. Drummer Tom DeVinko is frenetic and anxious in moments like oCoffer,o where percussion and acoustic noodlings tangle together in anthemic knots. oHey Friends,o a measured ninety seconds spent gasping for air, uses DeVinkoAEs drums to signal shifts in KellyAEs desperate narration. Even when drums arenAEt the focal point of these expanded arrangements, thereAEs enough varied geography here to match the albumAEs two-year songwriting period. Sometimes itAEs literal, like oRJW,o where KellyAEs imagined rivers, jungles, and waterfalls create a humid backdrop for angled guitars and speared vocal takes. Sometimes this terrain is implied, like the spiraling ambience of instrumental oPoplar Mobuso or the maze of outsized confusion circling through oGlovesweat.o Either way, the journey is harrowing, heart-rending, but deeply gratifying. .'