Swing Kids - Discography

To start this off, Discography is hard to describe in any one genre. It spans from Thrash to Jazz Punk. For instance, the intro to the song Disease starts off with only piano and drums. There are some really interesting, dare I say, almost Free Jazz lines in the piano. Then the guitarist strums a Jazz chord which is sustained and then morphs into a blistering frenzy of Thrash.

I like that they did a hardcore punk rendition of Warsaw by Joy Division. It's a brand new song done in this manner! Not all of the songs have jazzy elements, but the band makes up for it with their pure energy. To me, there is nothing better than a band that is excited about what their doing. And that element definitely shows on this album.

The guitar on this album is sometimes reminiscent of the band Drive Like Jehu. But there are an innumerable amount of influences here. Vocally, this album is intense! Justin Pearson has my favorite scream of any hardcore vocalist out there. There's just a quality to it that can't quite be touched. It almost sounds like he's dry heaving, or retching, he's screaming so hard. He also has a great idea how to bring the volume down by speaking the vocals rhythmically.

Pearson really outdid himself lyrically. Almost all of the songs have very short lyrical ideas that are repeated throughout the song. One song in particular opens with the line, "It's already been said by every god damned one!" This statement sets the scene for this album. He then claims that he is, "Just another kid on the beat, yea!" Which makes so much sense. If everything has already been said, then every musician is just another kid on the beat. Yea!

Discography has lots of fairly short tunes, the longest on the album is 4:23. Four of the nine songs are not much over a minute long. Yes, I said it. Nine songs! This is suppose to be a discography people. It leaves you begging for more from a band that broke up 12 years ago!

I'm a big fan of The Locust. The singer from this band plays bass and sings in The Locust (along with a long list of other bands). Swing Kids didn't strike me as great until a month or two ago. I made an attempt to listen to a few samples on iTunes a year or two ago but was not very impressed. I finally decided to give them another go and actually listened to all of their songs. To say the least, I was not disappointed!

To be brief, this group had a greatness to them and still does. They just did a reunion tour this year and the reviews of fans went from "really, really good" to "amazing, totally unbelievable". I don't doubt this one bit and am severely jealous of people that were able to go. Had I gotten into them when I heard them a year ago, I would have made an honorable attempt to see the reunion shows they played this last May. *Sadness* :(

Swing Kids is for fans of Drive Like Jehu, Some Girls, The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower, Refused, Orchid, etc...

Swing Kids - Discography
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