Sheer Mag Fuses Classic-Rock Riffage and Grubby Basement Vibes

The quintet plays party music that also hurts.

By Chris Stamm

[PUNK POP] Sheer Mag avoids interviews and mostly eschews the internet, but that hasn't slowed the Philadelphia band's rise in the least. Emerging fully formed in 2014 with the release of a flawless four-song EP, Sheer Mag fuses majestic classic-rock riffage and grubby basement vibes to create an ideal sonic complement to every punk vest repping Thin Lizzy. While the quintet's marriage of lo-fi aesthetics and rock-'n'-roll tradition shares a spirit realm with Robert Pollard's mid-'90s masterpieces and Royal Headache's recent garage-pop gems, Sheer Mag's swaggering anthems are more than marvels of form—they are vital missives from a place where the personal and the political meet. The four songs on III, the band's third and most recent EP, conjure everything from a missing woman in Ciudad Juárez to the magic warmth of a lover's hand to reckon with a world of bodies and hearts that aren't always allowed to be as free as they should be. It's party music, but it hurts too.

Sheer Mag plays Sunday at 3:05 pm.

(Amy Churchwell)

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