PLAYING FAVORITES

Sheer Mag have labored to carve out a discernibly singular position within the canon of contemporary rock: toggling with ease between the refined flourishes of a "connoisseur's band" and the ecstatic colloquialism of populist songwriting-yet displaying no strict loyalty to either camp-their sound, while oft-referenced, is unmistakably and immediately recognizable as theirs alone. On Playing Favorites, Sheer Mag's third full-length and first with Third Man Records, the band capitalize on a decade's worth of devotion to their own collective spirit-a spirit refined in both the sweaty trenches of punk warehouses and the larger-than-life glamour of concert halls-emerging with a dense work of gripping emotions, massive hooks, and masterfully constructed power-pop anthems. This is the record the Philadelphia rock and roll four-piece has always been destined to make.