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Avg: 3.5 (53 ratings)
- Date Released: February 20, 2007
- Genre: Alternative/Punk
- Style: Indie Rock
- Label: Secretly Canadian / SC Dist.
The former Starflyer 59 keyb player’s most fully realized solo outing yet.
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We Say...
Richard Swift's third album is the singer-songwriter's most charming, well realized and original work yet. If you like Harry Nilsson, Rufus Wainwright, Jim White and Regina Spektor, you may find a new favorite right here. The dude plays the vast majority of the instruments himself on this piano-driven affair. The arrangements smartly mix distorted-sounding percussion and multi-tracked vocals with tasteful little baroque pop elements: strings and things.
Swift was previously a keyboardist for the crazily-underrated CCM shoegazers Starflyer 59, but his solo albums show a lot more sonic restraint. Laconically paced and lazily crooned, Swift's songs are the real focus of this record, and rightly so. A lot of younger singer-songwriters — be they of the so-called "freak folk" variety or those with more of an affinity for Tin Pan Alley/ Brill Building — seem stuck in one mode, mood-wise. They tend to make music that sounds either relentlessly mopey or gratingly, manically happy. Swift never succumbs fully to either pole; his upbeat songs have a melancholic edge while his downers percolate with hope ("I wish I was dead most of the time/ But I don't really mean it, no").
The real thrill of Dressed Up for the Letdown is that Swift seems to be achieving his own voice right in front of the listener, though that could be the way it progresses — unlike so many albums these days, it's not front-loaded with the best songs right from the start. In fact, the final song, the gently acoustic "The Opening Band," might be the best tune about John the Baptist that's been recorded in the past eighty years (check track 17 here). "They tried to kick his ass," Swift lazily croons. "He didn't fight back." -
They Say...
Richard Swift threw his dice down a lo-fi Tin Pan Alley on the Novelist/Walking Without Effort, a collection of sepia-toned curios that spanned 2001 to 2004 but sounded like visionary pop acetates from the 1904 World's Fair. The native Minnesotan and closet anglophile taps his cane down "Penny Lane" on Dressed Up for the Letdown, a warm and deceptively inviting celebration of post-Revolver "Fab Four" ("Kisses for the Misses" is pure, amiable McCartney despair). Swift's laconic delivery is often compared to contemporaries like Ron Sexsmith and Rufus Wainwright, but when he tosses off self-directed barbs like "I played your heart but I broke two strings Jesus Christ, you're a lovely thing" from the swooning "Buildings in America," it's a Ray Davies or Elvis Costello comparison that he's more deserving of. While the album as a whole does wallow a bit, it never suffers melodically. The Richard Hawley-esque "Ballad of You Know Who" may conjure up images of a cocktail-cherry-covered beverage napkin, but it feels more like a wink than a teardrop, the ambling title cut perks up as a ghostly horn trio wanders in from the cold, and the cabaret-style closer paints John the Baptist as "The Opening Band" for Jesus Christ. Dressed Up for the Letdown feels like the wee hours of morning, and that may keep some listeners from breaking it out as often as they should, but like all good slices of melancholy pie, it's best enjoyed in your basement while the rest of the world is asleep.
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| 01. |  |
Dressed Up For The Letdown |
3:55 |
|
| 02. | |
The Songs of National Freedom |
3:12 |
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| 03. | |
Most of What I Know |
4:50 |
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| 04. | |
Buildings in America |
4:05 |
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| 05. | |
Artist & Repetoire |
2:23 |
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| 06. | |
Kisses for the Misses |
3:11 |
|
| 07. | |
P.S. It All Falls Down |
3:24 |
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| 08. | |
Ballad of You Know Who |
5:00 |
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| 09. | |
The Million Dollar Baby |
3:47 |
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| 10. | |
The Opening Band |
2:12 |
|
10 Total Tracks, 35:59 Total Length
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Credits
- Chris Colbert - Mixing // Matt Fronke - Flugelhorn // Victor Lawrence - Cello // Elijah Thomson - Bass // Elijah Thomson - Guitar (Bass) // Elijah Thomson - Engineer // Eric J. Hosler - Violin // Shanti Randall - Viola // Richard Swift - Engineer // Onasis - Artwork // Lance Alton Troxel - Liner Notes // Ulysses - Artwork
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