While continuing to make perfectly competent albums over the last 17 years, Sweet has in many ways never recovered from the plaudits heaped on his 1991 power pop masterpiece Girlfriend. Countless bands, not least Teenage Fanclub, Jellyfish and The Lemonheads, owe a debt to that seminal record, but it’s a high watermark its creator has struggled to match.
Sunshine Lies possesses only glimmers of greatness, relying too heavily on bogstandard riff-outs (Room To Rock, Flying) and archival tributes that wear their hearts on their sleeves with irritating blatancy (Byrdgirl). The title track has a seductive psychlite trippiness, as does Around You Now, but they’re rare delights in a disappointingly routine set of songs.
Sweet’s strongest release in relatively recent times was the 2003 album he made as The Thorns, with fellow singersongwriters Shawn Mullins and Pete Droge, and perhaps he’s at his best these days as part of a collaborative unit. Left to his own devices, he’s tended to fall short of former glories.
