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Happiness Is Hard
Happiness Is Hard cover
On December 14th Swivek released their glossiest and trashiest effort yet with "Happiness Is Hard", here is the place to discuss the new album, ask questions, chit and chat and tell us what you think.. and coming soon the first single "Debbie Doesn't"!
Here is the first review of "Happiness Is Hard" written by Patrick English, electronic genius behind Orange Television and co-writer of "Little Miss Priss" off the new album:
SWIVEK: "Happiness Is Hard"
Packaged like a pack of Hot Pink New Wave Bubble Yum, Swivek’s latest “Happiness is Hard” is soft and sweet in spots, hard and chewy in others. It is nostalgic and addictive like your favorite episode of VH1’s “I love the 80’s”, but at the same time it’s a futuristic trip down the icy streets of heartbreak. Emotions bounce from angry to drunkenly elated to nervous wreck to giddy excitement. “Mouth” opens the album on a dark note. The lyric is vaguely political in tone, and the vocal sounds accusatory and fed up. Bombs are dropping, and it’s time for a change because Mama’s not dancing anymore. The main melody and loops are repetitious and pleasantly trance-inducing like a paranoid nursery rhyme. This track is claustrophobic and quite dynamic. It builds into a dissonant electronic frenzy like a million gothic roller skaters getting angrier and angrier and stomping their wheels to their own private industrial beat. “Mouth” brings to mind a more electro Joy Division, dark and remotely disturbing, complete with a dramatic disembodied yelp as the song climaxes, then disintegrates into noise.
“Where the Boys Are” rides in on an electro bouncing buggy, undersexed and desperate. I’m sure this is a cover song, yet I can’t quite recall the original at this point, because Swivek takes the song to an entirely new and different place. Sassy and sarcastic, this a perfect choice of a cover tune. This is the most danceable track we have heard from Swivek since the early days, I think. The bassline is drowsy and addictive, and the song is like cruising for boys on vodka and heavy painkillers.
“Debbie Doesn’t” is one of my favorite Swivek lyrics ever. I can recreate the whole scenario in my mind, and it’s tragic and hilarious at the same time. Built around an endless two-note guitar loop, this song has a circular quality. It’s like that moment when you finally get to meet your all time idol and you panic and your brain freezes and gets stuck in a repetitive trance and you can’t really speak …that moment. That’s what this song is like. A catchy purple panic.
Riding in on a warm breeze from the Southwest, “Make A Level Sunrise” starts innocently enough, evoking a lo-fi take on Wham’s classic “Club Tropicana”. Then a slicing hi-hat kicks in and the song gradually becomes a futuristic street scene in Spanish Harlem, except with gypsy robots instead of flamenco dancers. Some horns pop in to take the track all the way to La Isla Bonita-land. This one remained stuck in my head for hours after two listens.
“Eggman” is intense and dark. Although that endlessly repeating guitar chord is obviously a loop, I prefer the thought of the singer playing that guitar himself, strumming the same chord (perhaps the only one he knows?) over and over again in a fit of heartbreak induced, booze-soaked, crazed desolation. The singer is on a roof or bridge or cliff, about ready to pull a Humpty Dumpty, and playing that guitar chord over and over again as it echoes out into an empty 4AM world. A bit depressing, really.
Time to rock out, and “Cocksure” does so with its cock out. This one is straight and sassy, a hard rock prick tease. There ain’t no way some bitch is gonna get a piece of that meat! The endless phallic references in the lyrics are an absolute riot. The 2nd guitar that surges in on the chorus and toward the end is an excellent musical touch, adding intensity just as the song begins to stall, carrying it through. An excellent Benatar pastiche, but from a (straight?) male point of view. Clever.
“Little Miss Priss” started as a bassline that I had worked on for an OTV remix that never was meant to be completed because clearly it was destined for bigger and better things. Some beats, a touch of piano and an overdubbed vocal and the track was born. I like how the vocals landed where I didn’t expect them to, for example the chorus happens during what I had envisioned as a break. It’s the “ahhhhhs” that make this song stick in my brain the most. Lyrics are typically salty; is this about anyone in particular, I wonder…
“Baby” opens with a haunting combination of echo-soaked acoustic guitar and lovelorn voice, and gradually builds a stop-start percussion line, creating a disconnected vibe. It seems like a breakup song, another somebody done somebody wrong song. Another song that has that 2-bottles-o-gin-later quality. There are some interesting sound effects here that add to the clatter, like African pottery and distant helicopter. Wistful.
“Anything at All” is pissed off and punctuated by odd bursts of dissonant noise which add bitter charm to a repetitive rock guitar loop. Again, the tone is angry, this time the vitriol is direct at an ex. “He never gave me anything” becomes a mantra and a threat. This song breezes by snottily, at a perfect punk pace, in just over 2 ½ minutes.
Despite the title, “Nightmare” is nowhere near as scary in tone as say, “Mouth”. In fact, it’s a relatively pleasant shuffling sleepless bossanova. The bongo player is half-asleep and there is sand in the drum machine. Some electronic noises heighten the sense of spaciness. This song is uncomfortable, it’s tossing and it’s turning. It’s drifting in and out. I like the random guitar bit at the fade out.
“Girls Talk” is an Elvis Costello song I am not at all familiar with, so I can’t compare it to the original. Anyway, every cover song that Swivek does just becomes a Swivek song anyway, and this one is a doozey. Punk guitar loops drive this straight into 80’s hard rock territory. Some distant spacey electronics make this track feel a bit like it is being beamed in by Trism (See B-52’s “Whammy”). Hard and sassy.
“Speeding” packs that perfect upbeat punch to end “Happiness is Hard” on. The rolling bassline is catchy as hell, and the instrumentation and arrangement are all over the place, bringing to the table some tonal variety after so many stark tracks. This track doesn’t fart around with 80’s nostalgia or electro gimmicks, it just comes straight at you in direct and modern fashion. It rocks and it’s fun and as the title suggests, it speeds by rather quick, but is the perfect length. Musically, this is the best track I’ve heard from the band (with its five newly acquired members) and as the last track on the CD, one can only hope it is an indication of things to come for Swivek.
