Taking another direction

Music Row

By Brian Rademaekers

When members of the Philly four-piece, The Swimmers, broke out with their 2008 debut, Fighting Trees, they'd already endeared fans with their strain of upbeat indie rock.

Recorded in 2007 and released on Drexel University's MAD Dragon label, the debut resulted from a project begun in 2005. Starting out with a handful of songs, they garnered attention with a distinctly tight take on shimmering indie pop - a sound as catchy as it was well-executed.

They became one of the first bands to sign on with Drexel's fledgling label, and accolades - including raves on these pages - poured in following Fighting Trees' release.

Good clean pop, delivered with tons of hooks and energy, made the Swimmers hard not to like, and they quickly built a following among fans of bands like the Capitol Years and The Shins.

Now, just a year after that debut, the Swimmers have followed up with another full-length. It's one that turns in a direction that's a touch darker, a touch more complex.

In the process, it appears as though the band hit the reset button, building a home studio from scratch and recording the entire album themselves.

Given that background, People Are Soft has a surprisingly slick veneer, one countered by more contemplative and quirky edges not nearly as evident on Fighting Trees.

It might be stating the obvious to say that an album recorded by a band with a husband-and-wife duo - Steve and Krista Yutzy-Burkey, paired with Scott French - has a degree of intimacy, but the sort of emotions channeled here don't have that sort of marital vibe.

Rather, People Are Soft dishes out edgy pop tinged with a heavy dose of anxiety and foreboding, somehow wrapping those honest sentiments into a package of rocking, fun songs.

That juxtaposition rings out from the start with the opening track Shelter; the music zips along, beautiful but half-weary, and the vocals are affectionate but melancholy.

Their Hundred Hearts is catchy as hell, employing snaking bass lines, snappy percussion and airy harmonies - but lyrically, the shades of cynicism are deep and unmistakable: If you got a hundred hearts, that just means 99 more hearts to break.

The following track, Drug Party, is split among jittery energy, reckless escapism and paranoia about what it all leads to.

On What This World is Coming To, they leap out at with a soaring sound that grooves along with synth hooks, hand claps and glowing vocals, the tempo shifting from heart-quickening to meditative.

Recalling at times something the Flaming Lips might concoct, it's a striking song for its sheer loveliness. It's also clear why the band chose this song to accompany a polished music video that's quickly gone viral in these parts.

On Give Me the Sun, they blast away notions of being overly pretty, instead going after a quick, jaunty rock that evokes The Fall and unabashedly incorporates touches of '80s electro-pop.

The closer, Try to Settle In, is a quirky amalgam of sounds. Starting with organ (fitting, considering that two Swimmers members met while working as organ tuners), the song wanders through several modes, incorporating cool spoken-word lyrics with off-kilter keys, angelic female vocals harmonizing, crashing drums, reverb swells and goofy synth.

It's weird and beautiful - the perfect statement for a band that won fans over with pretty, shimmering pop and now looks to explore wilder woods and deeper pools of thought.

They'll introduce the masses to People Are Soft with an album-release party on Friday at Kung Fu Necktie, along with the Capitol Years, a band that just returned from yet another tour as backers for the legendary Daniel Johnson.

The CD-release show will be an early one, at least as far as rock shows go: Capitol Years come on at 8 p.m., followed by the Swimmers at 9.

Fans can get a free copy of People Are Soft by preordering tickets at www.kungfunecktie.com.

Check it out . . .

Who: The Swimmers, Capitol Years

Where: Kung Fu Necktie, Front and Thompson streets

When: Friday, Nov. 6, at 8 p.m.