RICHARD SWIFT - The Atlantic Ocean
Wednesday, May 6, 2009 at 04:31PM
soundscapes in Pop/Rock

Some would call Richard Swift a revivalist. For some reason, this works against artists these days--hipper strains of music journalism cast these albums as having "been done before". Well, Richard Swift takes what has been done before and bends it just slightly. With his keyboard choices on some of these tracks, he has almost created some type of space-age Tin Pan Alley fusion. On the tune "Bad Coma Motown", Swift interjects Salvation Army horns and banjo to fully realize this boozy march. For its part, "A Song For Milton Feher" grabs all the upbeat qualities of British flower-pop artist Keith West; on last track "Lady Luck", Swift goes all falsetto and channels his inner Smokey Robinson. On this fourth album under his own name (not including recent rock'n'roll and electronic sidesteps as Onasis and Instruments Of Science And Technology), Swift falls into company with contemporaries Plush and Kelley Stoltz, an esteemed group of younger men looking to carry the piano-pop torch into the next couple of decades.

Article originally appeared on Soundscapes - 572 College Street Toronto (http://www.soundscapesmusic.com/).
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