Ever since Ricky Wilson took two strings off his Mosrite and
Fred Schneider urged listeners to put on their nose guard, indie rockers have been drawn to the echoey magic of surf music, and
Swimsuit's debut album demonstrates that's just as true in 2011 as it ever has been.
Swimsuit is
Fred Thomas, the Michigan-based indie stalwart of
Saturday Looks Good to Me and
City Center, in collaboration with Dina Bankole (of Secret Twins), Amber Fellows (ex-
Dos Hermanos), and Shelly Salant (from
Tyvek), and while the album's first song kicks off with a bracing dose of punk guitar buzz, the sizable majority of the set consists of surf-influenced indie pop dominated by twangy guitars, with their single-note runs simmering in vats of reverb, accompanied by agile and spirited bass and drum, and occasional wordless harmonies. Most of
Swimsuit's ten songs are instrumentals, and even on the ones that have words, sound is clearly more important than meaning with the voices low in the mix. Fortunately, the guitar work here is eloquent enough; the band cite
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet as a key influence, though one can also hear traces of new wave-era surf-influenced acts like the Raybeats and the Unknowns, and like those bands, they use the splashy sound and open space of the surf instrumental form to give the songs a bracing air of both mystery and adventure; they drip with energy even when the sound is languid.
Swimsuit is short, sweet, and brimming with both guitars and ideas, and proves smart folks can hit the waves as well as anyone. ~ Mark Deming