Richard Swift - Dressed Up For The Letdown (Universal)
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
The sound of 'Dressed Up For The Letdown' is one so comforting, so gosh darn warm, that it's stopped the un-seasonal snowfall currently occurring outside and cleared the skies just in time for my walk home. As such, I feel the need to thank the album - it really was proper mingin' out there - and I'll do so by gushing praise about it for a few hundred words.
Stylistically, 'Dressed Up...' as a whole is of a kind, but right at the edges of whatever that kind is, peering over at the other genres, thinking they look mighty fun and momentarily dipping a toe in to them. It jumps like a hyperactive child all over the shop 'o tempos, from the sombre 'Artist and Repertoire' to the jollity of recent single 'Kisses for the Misses' (so, so Beatles, that one) without either Richard or you the listener thinking anything of the shift in mood whatsoever. It's such an honest record, such a personal one, that he can do the jump seamlessly because you know it's still him, his feelings and ideas, behind it all - and thanks to these songs, he's a person you feel you know really rather well
There are the brash pop parts, the gloriously summery 'The Songs of National Freedom' for example sounding like John Lennon and Elliot Smith jamming and having the time of their lives, the miserable sods. You get the curiously creepy opening title track, a whole heap of other stuff which makes you grin from ear to ear and other parts more delicately sombre, 'Most of What I Know' for example being a masterclass in interesting downbeat melody, stretching refrains out further than most easily accessible singer songwriters these days would dare. Lyrically he's grand also, delivering songs which you can contemplate on both a musical and a literary level, he really is the best of both worlds.
It's a bit sad, it's a bit happy, and Swift's well aware that it's emotionally all over the place. "I wish I was dead most of the time, but I don't really mean it" he sings in 'The Million Dollar Baby'. Of course he doesn't mean it. The only people who did ever mean things like that are people who are now actually dead. And this is the crux of the record, sentimentally at least - things suck from time to time, but for most of us, at the core, things are actually OK. And it's fine to feel like that. If you find yourself to be dressed up for the let down, think of it this way - at least you're dressed up... Smile. Things are bad, but not as bad as they could be, and they're not going to be bad forever. That's what this can teach you.
He might never make a perfect record (this ain't it. It's very, very close, but it ain't it). He will keep trying. What he probably will do is never make a bad one. Expect further instalments in the Richard Swift Collection, each of them worthy of your undivided attention. This is just the beginning of what most bands, despite strong starts, are unable to manage these days - a strong, flourishing, artistically relevant and important career. Enjoy this to its full - the beauty of Richard Swift is that, despite 'Dressed Up For The Letdown's brilliance, the next one ain't gonna sound anything like it.
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