SPUTNIK SWEETHEART
THEY ARE a trailblazing quartet of cruisy Canberran indie-rockers with as much a knack for head-noddable hooks as they have for cerebral Floydian guitar passages that twist and twine throughout a mix with spellbinding aplomb. Less than two years into their tenure, they’ve carved out a bright and bewitching sonic identity entirely of their own.
THEY SOUND LIKE coming home from a banging night out at 4am, realising you have a lecture to hit the next morning, and just not giving a f*** because all that matters is that you had fun (but lowkey freaking out a little subconsciously).
YOU’LL DIG THEM IF YOU LIKE Wolf Alice, Spacey Jane, The Academy Is..., and swapping freely between academic journals and comic books. If you pride yourself on your maturity, but secretly find fart jokes funny, Sputnik Sweetheart will tick all your boxes; after all, they’re named after a Murakami book and build a chorus around the phrase “what the f*** is FOMO?” They contain multitudes.
YOU SHOULD CHECK OUT the ponderous and polychromatic “Rolling”, a track that fittingly saw 2020 out with weighty, emotionally staid lyrics spun through a web of convoluted, yet beautifully meticulous instrumentation. The guitars ebb and flow between tight, surfy stumming and howling solos, with the chemistry between players Zac Bailey and Nette France (the latter also to thank for the track’s sharp and swanky vocal quips) simply incredible.