Swiftumz - Simply the Best (2024)

Chris McVicker went through the ringer personally and musically in the years after the release of Swiftumz’s excellent 2017 noise pop album Everybody Loves Chris, facing down all sorts of issues ranging from annoying to tragic before returning with another fine album. Simply the Best is a slightly cleaned-up version of the ’90s-loving, hook-filled, punk-adjacent guitar pop sound of the previous record – tighter, sleeker, and less bathed in reverb. On the up-tempo songs like the very bouncy and C-86-feeling “Unconditional” or the jangle-pop-perfect “Falling Down,” the sparkling melodies jump out of the grooves like sunbeams. On these tracks, McVicker crafts a sound that’s sprightly and fun, even as his vocals fill the center with a melancholy richness.

It’s the classic bit of delivering a gut punch of emotion with a smile, and he proves quite adept at that trick on the half of the album that plays it that way. The rest of the time, he gives himself over to the bluer side, dialing down the tempo on the slow drag ballad “Second Take,” ratcheting up the noise to malevolent levels on “Fall Apart,” or calling up some lo-fi drum samples and underwater mixing to give the impression that he’s one breath away from drowning in deep feels (“Demoralized”).
The up-tempo, zippy tracks may prove the more listenable — especially “Never Impress,” which sounds like a lost Creation Records single from 1985 — but the slower, more measured songs are nearly as compelling. McVicker may have had to struggle to get Simply the Best made, but there’s nothing difficult about listening to it. He packages his pain with more than enough sticky hooks and chewy sweetness to make the medicine go down smoothly, all while leaving Swiftumz fans hoping that the next record comes much easier and much more quickly.