Winter is finally here, which means the aphrodisiac aromas of christmassy spiced latte, wet leaves, and Christmas decorations are also in full swell in the stores. In a parallel sensory universe, listeners are cozying up with dense-yet-palatable guitar-driven rock songs—and that’s where Ian Sweet comes in.
The project of LA-based songwriter Jilian Medford have just released its second collection of such wooly rock songs, “Crush Crusher” and while Medford’s singing voice sometimes gets swallowed by her shred-woven Autumn sweater, the record’s audible lyrics tend to swirl around the topic of romantic interests. Neither a rueful breakup album nor a sappy meet-cute, Crusher is an intricate look at relationships in the past, present, and future tenses, channeling vague existentialism (“I never believed in dying / Until I met you”), gross-out poetry (“You’ll go, and I’ll get swallowed / By someone else’s spit”), and literal recollection (“Did I ever ask what you thought / About that day we fucked in the parking lot?”) under Medford’s pristine, bleacher-reaching guitar.
“Spit” is the second single from IAN SWEET’s 2018 album Crush Crusher.
Believe it or not, though, Ian Sweet isn’t the first artist to write songs about crushes.