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A couple years back, Spokane’s most un-famous punk/power pop band, Sweet Madness, released their first album Made in Spokane 1978-1981! It turned out not only to be a solid collection of decades-old recordings, but also, FINALLY, it told their story—filling a BIG gap in late ’70s PacNW music history. Their relevance may have been tilled under for a few years, but like I noted in my review of MiSV.1, the band was really important, as they were the first underground band in Eastern Washington.

Sweet Madness were are an important power pop/new-wave group from Eastern Warshington. With a toe into punk, they were the first band in Spokane, and most likely all of Eastern Warshington (and Idaho), to actively push beyond the then rock and pop cliché into the NEW sounds of the underground. Their first show was in the spring of 1979 at an “Anti-Boredom Rally” (and) it didn’t take long for the band to become the focus of the underground. At the time, ONE band is all it took to get a scene rolling or to fill the culture vacuum. And in 1979, there were no scene rules, no mohawks, so the scene was EVERYBODY all in at once. Fortunately for Spokane, Sweet Madness were actually an AWESOME BAND, like, they were good players, and their songwriting was forward-thinking and well-crafted, and for a band to have had such a short existence they really sparked a thriving scene.

Well, strap on your pogoin’ shoes ’cause as of YESTERDAY, another killer batch of Sweet Madness has been released. This album is titled (ahem) Made in Spokane 1978-1981 Volume 2!

Style-wise, the songs are all late ’70s new-wave ragers, so don’t be surprised to find MiSV.2 as solid as MiSV.1. Also, although all these songs were recorded alongside the tracks from the first album, this ain’t no second-string shit—IT’S ALL MEAT. Uh-huh, we get another 15 cool, frantic punkish tracks, some proper driving power pop, with a few slight dips into popsike (them guitar leads, guys!), and at least one “it’s almost a ballad” slow jam. Now, they’re all great tracks, right, AND the lead track, “Sleeping Without You,” probably could have been a single. However, I think my fave track off this LP is “Severn” (the linked clip is from the documentary Spokanarchy and, I think, a different performance than on MiSV.2). (Swoon.) “Servern” is a perfect power pop jam—a Stooges vs. Flamin’ Groovies dream!

This record impressed me as much as the first volume. The band is long dead, but they STILL somehow pulled a killer sophomore album out of what most would consider to be demos. Goddamn. What a testimony.