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Deal Me Peace

 Asian Man Records delivers heater after heater. Halfway through 2023 they put out the debut LP from Sweet Gloom, Reverie, which is a fantastic album. Sweet gloom deliver indie poppy rock with punk swagger, croonish vocals and sprinkles of doo-wop. The vocals croon in an Alkaline Trio way, and I don't mean like one of the vocalists, Jaake's voice and delivery is almost a mash of Skiba and Andriano. The bass player Chis sings on a couple songs where he has that midwestern gravely pop punk delivery which is a fantastic juxtaposition against Jaake. Predominantly introspective lyrics. Sweet is the vocals, melodies; Gloom is the lyrics. I guess one might say that Sweet Gloom play sweet gloom music. I strongly recommend that you listen then purchase Reverie.

In Canada...in Manitoba at least there are two primary chip dips. Philadelphia (cream cheese based) and Heluva Good! (sour cream based). I'm not here to tell you which type is better...I am however here today to give you my two cents on Heluva Good!'s Caramelized Onion dip. The chip that I dipped into this tub was Old Dutch Rip-L (from the 2x110g box [you know, the box that has two separate 110g silver bags {if you don't know what I'm talking about here's a quick description..medium sized ridges..think Wavy Lays..decent crunch and pretty salty. No flavour, just salted.}]). Heluva Good! dips are a bit more dense than straight up sour cream...or they're a relatively high fat sour cream..I don't know. It's thick but not quite cream cheese thick. The dip is creamy. Is the caramelized onion flavour very strong, no. There's onion flavour there but I wish it was about 33% more present. It's a decent dip, but not quite sweet enough to earn the caramelized onion name to me. It tastes close to homemade, but it's almost that it tastes close enough that it leaves me wanting the real thing. Honestly, I'd recommend that you just caramelize your own onions and make a dip from 'em but if you're in a time pinch and don't want a super oniony dip it ain't bad.

Stay hydrated,

Marc

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