Lira Mondal filled You Say I Romanticize with outcasts, people pushed to society's margins and turned into zealots for one cause or another. Abduction On Camera comes from that record, the third by Sweeping Promises, which Sub Pop released on August 14, 2026. Mondal wrote the lyrics, the duo composed, arranged and produced the track, and Caufield Schnug, the other half of the band, recorded, mixed and mastered it.
For these songs the pair brought in live drummer Spenser Gralla to carry the urgency of their shows into the studio, and the same fever runs through Mondal's singing. They played the song at Euclid Records in Webster Groves, Missouri the night before the album came out.
About Sweeping Promises
Sweeping Promises are bassist and vocalist Lira Mondal and guitarist Caufield Schnug. Their debut, Hunger for a Way Out, was how the global punk underground first met them, and it became one of the records that broke through during pandemic lockdown. Good Living is Coming for You followed in 2023, a satirical and sharply critical take on capitalism.
For their third album, You Say I Romanticize, the two tilted their approach a few degrees forward. The title comes from a lyric in the closing track 'Write Lightly', a song about the urge toward self-expression in writing being sanded down by 'professional' concerns, and many of the characters Mondal writes here are outcasts, pushed to society's margins and turned into zealots for one particular cause or another. The band brought live drummer Spenser Gralla into the sessions to give the songs the urgency of their shows, and the same fever runs through Mondal's vocals. The record sits alongside the band's love for their artistic community, the weirdos who turn outcast status into vivid art and punk rock, while looking at its shadow side: the obsessive, fanatical edge of being cut off and isolated by mainstream society.
Bodies bump into each other
There are no rules in their games
I came here with no one else, no
I can't tell you why I came, and
All of a sudden the sky was black, I was
Watching them fall in the rain
Underneath a thin umbrella
At this cave without a name
You're all I got and
You blow it up
Go, black out the sky
You don't ask why
I'll leave you with a good impression
A taste of what I'm all about
Very little explanation
you keep you coming back
Your eyes can't handle this total darkness
Changes things inside your brain
If you overstay your welcome
At this cave without a name, you're
You're all I got and
You blow it up
Go, black out the sky
You don't ask why
My hands are steady, the lens is open
Hands are steady, the lens is open
Hands are steady, my arms are open
Take my place in the stream unbroken
You're all I got and
(Bodies bump into each other, there are no rules in their games)
You blow it up
(I came here with no one else, no I can't tell you why I came)
Go, black out the sky
(Eyes can't handle this total
darkness, changes things inside your brain)
You don't ask why
(I came here with no one else, no, I can't tell you why)
