he Atomic Swindlers are a five-piece band that's been getting some good exposure in upstate New York and is now looking to break out of the region. They write songs that explore what they call "non-gender-judgmental sex, love, time-travel escapades and intergalactic mayhem" set to a "cosmic groove." The Swindlers go over well in the Rochester area clubs, particularly since their lead singer and keyboardist, April Laragy, acts out the persona of an interstellar hottie. This, their self-released first CD, displays impressive songwriting ability and more than adequate playing.
The band unashamedly mines the "Spiders From Mars" glam-rock groove that David Bowie pioneered back in the day, and they channel Bowie on a few of these tracks. It's a lot of fun to pick out the influences of Bowie, among others, in the Swindlers' music. What's best about the tunes, though, is that they are all very melodic. Laragy has a voice that ranges from wistful to sensuous—it's always very smooth, without any rough edges. The band benefits from the assured playing of drummer/songwriter Roy Stein, who works with bassist Gary Trainer to anchor the tracks. This allows the guitarists, Scott Ostrowski and Chris Yockel, to take their solos off into orbit. But they never go too far from what Stein and Trainer are laying down. Production credits go to the Swindlers, with Stein and Ostrowski also engineering with co-producer Chris Hooker.
The disc opens with the soft but insistent "Float (my electric stargirl)," for which award-winning animator/illustrator Joel Trussell has supplied a superb Samurai Jack-like video. If the listener pops the disc into a computer, the enhanced menu comes up with a link to the video and the band's Web site. The disc also works perfectly well on a regular CD player. The aptly named "Float" evokes that dreamy old Bryan Ferry tune "Avalon." The second tune, "Wonderlove," reminds one of mid-period Procol Harum, with a very nice dual guitar-piano solo. "Space Bandit," the third song, is a seriously up-tempo rocker whose bridge really takes off. There's a cool Leslie effect on Laragy's voice.
The other songs have good melodic hooks, and are all reminiscent of other bands. "Drag," for example, wouldn't have sounded out of place on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. "Diamond Dreamer" sounds like early Dire Straits.
The aliens are coming out
With "Intergalactic Lesbian Love Affair," we're back in Bowie territory, this time visiting "Diamond Dogs." Brian Eggleston, who supplies piano on a number of tracks, adds some excellent background work here, as on the aforementioned "Wonderlove."
It's probably no exaggeration to say that almost any of the songs on this CD could be a hit with proper airplay and marketing push. The lyrics are good, too, which is something of a surprise from a freshman effort. "Sex66," for example, has a great opening line, "I like the way your name feels in my mouth." Nudge nudge, wink wink. Also, the song has what is probably the best guitar solo on the album.
The final track, "Stars in My Pocket," takes its opening line directly from the Chip Delany novel, with Laragy's voice underlined by tabla and a Flaming Lips-like guitar lick that leads right into a Hendrix-inspired passage right out of Axis: Bold as Love. They even applied phase shifting to Laragy's voice in places here. "Stars" is no mere imitation of the Hendrix tune, however. The babbling vocal works nicely against the more leisurely instrumental work. The song ends with an extended up-tempo coda that really has the guitars working out and Stein pounding away like a madman.
Every song here has been carefully constructed and gives testimony to the time put into the writing and the arranging. The Swindlers have in fact given lots more thought to arrangements than most other new bands. The production is good, too. It never gets in the way of the music, giving each instrument and vocal track plenty of room. Nothing gets buried in the mix.
