It’s tough to stay afloat in today’s music world; up-and-coming bands are a dime a dozen, and it’s easier than ever to get material to the masses. Luckily, wading through so many rip-offs and MySpace hopefuls helps attunes you to the real stuff: the albums you want to listen to over and over, the catchy, soulful songs that hit you right in the heart. The sophomore release from Philadelphia-based The Swimmers (their first album, Fighting Trees, was released in 2008) is a solid, well-crafted release that predicts good things for this quartet. Chock full of slick, pretty pop songs swathed in synthesizers and odd, evocative lyrics, People Are Soft floats by in a blur at first but reveals deeper layers upon further listen.
Opening with “The Lucky Ones,” the album ensconces you all at once in a sparkling guitar riff and energetic drums as lead singer/songwriter Steve Yultzy-Burkey sings, “To start again, we’re the lucky ones.” His vocals are warm and languorous, a nice match for the song’s full harmonies and slow-building electric backbeats. Cleanly, the band segue into “A Hundred Hearts,” which pairs The Swimmers’ lovely meld of swelling reverb, rich harmonies, and creepily tender vocals. This cut is a twisted little love song, with images of yanking out lion’s teeth and the swirling chorus “If you had a hundred hearts you could try to ration out them / But one by one they’d break them / And then you’d be without ‘em.”
On this disc, the band (comprised by Steve and Krista Yutzy-Burkey, Scott French, and Rick Sieber) built a home studio from the ground up and recorded the material here by themselves, resulting in a cohesive sound that for its reliance on electronic textures still manages to sound close and intensely personal (not to mention, extremely polished).
The longest song here is just over four minutes, and it’s clear that The Swimmers do well in confined space; their best songs are short and deceptively bright, full of jangling instrumentation and thick electric guitar riffs, like on the quick, triumphant burst of energy of “Drug Party” or the almost manic energy of “Give Me The Sun,” accented with handclaps and a New Wave-ish bassline.
It really sounds like The Swimmers are having fun with their material, pushing the boundaries of their sound and relishing that exploration. Between textures and tempo, no song stays static for very long, instead changing shape to become different beasts entirely. Take “Nervous Wreck,” which starts out with agitated bass and close-miced vocals to betray tension; as the chorus kicks in, though, the song suddenly becomes a propulsive, shimmering anthem of optimism.
Being such a tight, inventive album, the few less than exciting moments do tend to stick out, however. “Dress Don’t Fit,” for one, is a bit too repetitive for such a clipped runtime, while the languid pace of “What This World Is Coming To” takes time to warm up to after the punchy outro of “Drug Party.”
Still, as things paddle to a close with the swelling, bouncy beats of “Try To Settle In,” it’s hard to find fault with this short but lovely disc. On People Are Soft, the band finds new language to express timeworn feelings as varied as disconnect to hope; there are surely open waters ahead for The Swimmers.