Sunday, April 26, 2009


The Swindlers—EP
Review by Samson

If heavy-ended, raucous, honest guitar music’s your bag; the Swindlers debut EP will prove about as reliable your Grandad’s Corolla and as solid as a Volvo station wagon in a crash test. The first few bars of the opening number Oh No welcome you to a familiar corner pub, sit you down in your favourite chair, offer you a pot and say, ‘Here ya go mate, don’t look so glum. Here’s some totally Australian, swaggering, rock-n-blues for your winter worries.’ Then they slap you around a bit for being such a sook.
Once you’ve negotiated the jitter-bug of an opener and waded through the rain-sodden sandbag grooves of the mid-tracks, the seven-handed speed blur strumming of Siren will get you rabbiting all over the place till your knees buckle and eyeballs hurt. The closer Boar Down will lure you back to the flood plains before bashing your brainbox with a combo of vocal, guitar and percussion staccato that’ll force you to spin the whole thing over again just in case you missed something in all the jumping and violence. And you will have, it just gets bigger and better the more it turns. Bloody nice package too!