The Sawtelles Keep Their Hands On The Wheel

“Amnesia,” the first song from the Sawtelles’ new album Promises and Codes, creates a mood from the first strike of the guitar, gritty and atmospheric. The drums come in to lay down a rhythm, but it still feels loose, as expansive as it began. Then the plaintive vocal comes in, unsettled, a little surreal: ​“I won’t go downtownm because it’s haunted / Memoir waits to greet on every block / Dodging the past is a task that’s daunting / Before she disappeared she unplugged all the clocks.”

The Sawtelles — married duo Julie (drums and vocals) and Peter Riccio (guitar and vocals) — have been making music together for over 20 years, mining a particular musical seam that feels pulled from the Naugatuck Valley, where Peter grew up, but also connects more generally to the older, darker side of American music. Their success in conjuring this mood over and over has made them a steady part of the New Haven music scene, through frequent live shows before the pandemic, and through consistently putting out records that draw fresh water from that deep musical well.

Promises and Codes is no exception. The darker tones of ​“Anmesia” open out to the sunny ​“Carpet,” an off-kilter romantic number that also quotes Lou Reed, which is fitting since the song is built mostly on a one-chord hook that he might have been proud of. ​“Too Late” mixes the two previous emotional states to balance hope and disappointment in equal measure, and features the Riccios in a call-and-response closer. ​“Things (Right Now)” features the Riccios swapping lines in perhaps the album’s sweetest song, a testament to enduring love in a world out of whack. ​“I don’t care if outer space was discovered to be empty / And all that classic Sci Fi vanished in thin air / It doesn’t really matter if we landed on the moon / Since everything I really need is here,” they sing. ​“I don’t care if all the airwaves suddenly went silent / Without the classic rock and roll we so enshrine / It doesn’t really matter if there’s only bad reception / If we’re together know that static suits me fine.”

As the album progresses — through the haunted ​“Chasing It,” the more uptempo ​“Upend,” and the return to ​“Too Late,” the Sawtelles show how both the music they make and the way they make it is perhaps uniquely suited to pandemic life. Their studio is in their house, in a spare bedroom given over entirely to music making. Writing songs and making albums at home has been a part of their day-to-day lives for years. That Promises and Codes is the third album released in the Covid era shows that, however else the pandemic may have affected their lives, it didn’t disrupt their creative process.

Likewise, the themes of connection amid alienation, and music that speaks both to a quiet urgency and a sense of loneliness, sink in a little deeper as we finish up the second year of the pandemic. ​“Disappointment’s arriving / but it’s never too late,” the Sawtelles sing on their closing track. That mixed message — whether it’s a comment on our current state of affairs, just the final statement in the latest chapter of the Sawtelles’ long musical story, or a little bit of both — is as fitting a statement of weathered hope as any. The duo has been driving down their musical road for a long time. It’s a pleasure to take this part of the trip with them.