Richard Swift
The Atlantic Ocean
Secretly Canadian
Firstly, I have to eat a little humble pie, for the lukewarm review of Richard Swift’s last album ‘Dressed Up For The Letdown’, which turned out to be something of a grower, sounding better and better with repeated plays.
After the unpolished garage rock of last years excellent ‘Richard Swift as Onasis’ comes his next album proper ‘The Atlantic Ocean’. Swift describes the sound as ‘Prince sitting in on John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band’ and is actually a pretty good analogy of what’s going on here, especially on the title track and ‘The Original Thought.'
However Swift is far from a one trick pony and mixes up his influences nicely; the catchy ‘The First Time’ has a touch of the Wilco about it (Swift recorded the album in their loft after meeting Jeff Tweedy on Later With Jools Holland), where as the excellent ‘Bat Coma Motown’ is pure Harry Nilsson.
A slight disappointment is that many of the best songs here already appeared on last years ‘Ground Trouble Jaw’ EP. ‘A Song For Milton Feher’ manages to be insanely catchy after only couple of bars and the closing ‘Lady Luck’, points to where Swift might be going next. With simple and soulful motown style backing, Swift demonstrate a whole other unexplored side to his vocal range.
‘The Atlantic Ocean’ is utterly listenable and cements Swift as a talent to watch, it will be interesting to see where he goes now.
3rd Apr 2009 - Tumblr
3.5
