Swissfarlo – Boxed / 12 Tracks / 2003 / Datawaslost Records / http://www.datawaslost.net/swissfarlo / http://www.datawaslost.net

Stradding the line between early-90s alt.rock bands like Collective Soul, Jellyfish, and the like and early pop-punk bands like Green Day, and Mudhoney, Swissfarlo immediately kicks out a driving beat to make Billy Joe Armstrong-style vocals into an amazingly catchy song: “Lines”. Simply stellar vocals are again packaged with the most clear and concise of guitars, this time in “Proline”, which picks up where late-nineties Sonic Youth left off. Wait wait I know this song! This is the cover “Man Who Sold the World” by Nirvana. No, it’s “Roman Candle”, and the vocals even manage to harness the deceased Kurt Cobain. “And I Digress”, aside from having an absolutely miniscule run time, continues this same devotion to the earliest days of the nineties. All ideas I had formed of Swissfarlo were absolutely blown away by “yr mine”, which brings crunchy guitars to a falsetto set of vocals making for (dare I say it?) a punk classic. Where “yr mine” was catchy as all hell, “simple faults” brings with it drilling guitar riffs, to properly insert the catchy lyrics into your head. By the time I would come up with a proper style for Swissfarlo, the next track would click on, and blow any of my conceptions out of the water. If you want a proper review, buy the album yourself. Swissfarlo approaches the problem of an empty CD 18 different ways, and needless to say, every approach is as perfect as can be. If you are looking for innovation (in any field) in the Midwest, stop looking at Chicago, at Cleveland, or even at Pittsburgh. It’s here with Swissfarlo.

Top Track : "Lines"