The first track reels in with a zippery seething rock shuffle a la "Come Together" meets Love and Rockets' "So Alive." But Swell proves themselves masters of minimal metamorphoses as their early '70s white funk coating holds a fresh surprise around every track corner and many in between.

Swell will be your friend and will not yell at you. They sort of plod along at a Pink Floydian pace with a Violent Femmes organic-icity, the simplicity of Red House Painters with an edgy vocal akin to a lazy but young Robert Palmer. Swell may not actually energize you, but they will embrace you. Sparse and plush, engaging and aloof, almost as if entire songs were made of those little Beatle outros and segue connectors. Maybe even at times like some of McCartney's demo's first rough drafts, or if Lennon had written "Mull Of Kintyre."

"Pink Pink Rain" is an outstanding bizarre montage of atmos-sampling. But mostly the album flies between heavy-ambient and light floaty rock, again, constantly metamorphing itself. And recorded and arranged with a noticeable crystal clarity. A very pleasant discovery for me in which I'm bound to discover more each time I listen.

- Bryan Tilford


EXCAVATION TIME IN THE US underground. And to San Francisco on this occasion: cut through the surface, past the beautiful people, those chiselled Tales Of The City lovelies, and head straight for the more salubrious bars, where in all probability we'll find Swell. Here we hit upon an eight-year-old seam rich in gently fried West Coast songsmithery. It's a seam worth digging, all told, though one rarely dug.

'For All The Beautiful People' (sarcasm by Americans. Good) is the mild-mannered trio's fifth album and, like its predecessors, it ploughs an engaging furrow through drowsy, largely acoustic mild psychedelia.

This time, though, the songwriting core of guitarist and vocalist David Freel and bassist Monte Vallier have fleshed out their slo-fi rumblings with sparks of keyboard trickery and, intriguingly on 'Make Up Your Mind', recorded some cows sheltering from a thunderstorm. For these unfazeable souls at least, this almost constitutes a radical new direction.

Fortunately, Swell's tremulous mastery of loose, narcotic pop overshadows these experimental ventures. Through the course of the album we are dragged through Freel's consistently nonplussed psyche - girlfriends are, he growls, "something to do" - and it's a strange, compelling trip. Disillusioned rather than bitter, Freel is the eternal pessimist - it just so happens that Swell's records get better as he becomes more jaded. And, as Elliott Smith's battered guitar and bleeding heart missives have shown, everyone loves life's losers.

Dig deep, then. You won't be disappointed. Leave that part to Swell.




Fifth album from San Francisco lo-fi godfathers bearing relative commercial sheen. Swell records move at a pace best described as half-arsed. When grunge died, American alternarock either turned back into metal or withdrew, tortoise-like, into its shell. Cue: Swell, eight years old and still ambling around the nucleus of singing guitarist David Freel and bassist Monte Vallier. After a tremendous, self-absorbed first two albums, they drifted into mediocrity. Here, they sound re-energised - perhaps by passing drummer Rob Ellis - with much-needed production polish dispersing the dope-cloud from Freel's balladry (Oh My My, Swill 9). Make Up Your Mind and Everything Is Good glint with synthesizer-assisted assurance, while Something To Do deliberately conjures the rattly, resonant Swell of yore for purists. They're back, wherever that may be.



Andrew Collins



Fifth LP outing from one of the US west coast's least-known bands - until now. Psychedelia, groovy guitar riffs and general songsmithery not a million miles away from The Doors, this is the San Francisco that almost begs you to put flowers in your hair.




While previous Swell albums were interesting, the San Francisco band ultimately shot itself in the foot by being too stylistically unfocused and a bit lazy in the production department; good tunes peeked through the bongsmoke haze, but not much else happened. Happily, the band has matured and realized that you put the song first, eccentricity second, resulting in a sleek record that hands out listeners' benefits from the start. Oh sure, Swell still loves its quirky effects, so you'll still encounter your share of phased 'n' fuzzy guitars, vocal tics and ghosts, gurgling keyboards and backward passages. In short, the kitchen sink aesthetic is in no danger of turning extinct here. But even on the stranger tunes, such as the Trio-meets-XTC robot pop of "Off In My Head" or the Flaming Lips-play-Brian Wilson psych of "Swill 9," the group comes up with enough meaty hooks to launch a fishing schooner. When you factor in the more straightforward stuff, the potential for the long haul looms as enormous. Just the double sucker-punch of the two opening tracks-the loping fuzztone drama of "Today" is followed by a deliciously spooky acoustic ballad called "Oh My My" that's mournful and optimistic at the same time-is enough to justify the purchase. And you get 10 other goodies in the process.

- Fred Mills




Since their drummer left Swell have been changing, they purposely left the loft they used to record in and left the sound, the sound of dark alleys drunken winos and the city, behind. Their last was the first record they recorded with a producer. This time David and Monte have tried it again on their own behind the mixing desk. They set out to make a headphone experience. Well, in that they did succeed. The sound is coming from all over and is best experienced with a good set of headphones, but I wish they had taken more care of the songs rather than twiddling so much knobs. Some of these are definitely under par compared to what we're used of Swell. If they had taken away some of the songs, toned down all the experiments with thunder and rain sounds, this record would have turned out right. But now it's nowhere near as good they have done before. A pity. But hell, they're still better than most bands especially to what they get compared with at the moment like Granddaddy.

- JV



Back in 1990, Swell made their first live appearance at a club in San Francisco supporting the fantastic (but apparantly missing in action) Mazzy Star; since then they have gone on to produce three critically acclaimed (in America it seems at least) albums, and For all the beautiful people is their fourth.
The band line-up has constantly shifted around the central core of David Freel and Monte Vallier, two droll folk-merchants, keen to inject not neccesarilly downbeat but certainly delicately noisy songs with black humour and cynicism.

Swell mix up a cocktail of grainy vocals, muddy noise, roller-rink keyboard experimentation and cow moos to make a melodious listenable bunch of tunes. Make up your Mind gets itself noticed because of its vitriolic speaker-phone vocals and loopy keyboards, though it doesn`t really demonstrate the full songwriting abilities of the band. For great, stripped-down simple tunes look to the gorgeous Blackmilk or the endearing, uplifting Everything is Good.

The more one listens to this album the more one feels that Swell would and probably only will be huge if the beast that is MTV decides that one of their videos is `alternative` and groovy and rotates madly. Now that ain`t fair. Swell sometimes sound like a band who`ve listened to a lot of Pavement and a bit of Beck. Swell have made an album that grows on you without you really even realising; the tunes are refreshing though occasinally err a little to far into the realm of `novelty quirky Presidents of the USA band`. But only occasionally.
Though this album came out in September it`d probably make quite a good present for the Eels fan in your life. Possibly lazy comparisons, but this album is certainly worth a listen if you like any of the above, and it`d be good to see Swell get the attention they deserve without them having to compromise themselves by hooking on to a musical trend. Why start now?





Still waiting for the era of synthesized chaos to die, listeners appear doomed to come across endless scores of bands like Swell. Wanting to be Nine Inch Nails, these bands think that monotony and a whole lot of static remain the key to a hit album.

Think again.

Swell's new album, "For All The Beautiful People," uses the concept of ambience and kills it by assuming ambient means brain-dead. Songs such as "Make up Your Mind" not only lack creativity but do so for an obscenely long amount of album time. It's one thing to be just plain boring, but don't force listeners to live through five minutes of it.

The opening notes of many of the songs suggest unique impulses, though none ever last long enough. Songs such as "Something To Do" rehash the same limpid chords over and over again underneath monotone, flat vocals that fail to complement one another.

If you need some sleep music, by all means, buy Swell's latest endeavor. True fans of music, though, should steer clear of this unfortunate knock-off.

Michelle Zubiate

 
 

For All The Beautiful People Reviews 1 2 3 4