Swords, Melissa

There is something weird, dark, funky, and a little beautiful about Nick Lutsko's Swords, and I am here for it. 

Some highlights for me come from "Shakedown" which was so bizarre and lovely. I felt like I was in the scene from Clueless where Brittany Murphy doesn't know how to tie her shirt around herself. I'm standing with her as the Mighty Mighty Bosstones play, but not in a way I hate. This is angry, funky, and a little clownish. "Straitjacket" is a video game anthem with a side of "Grease Lightning," but it doesn't feel stale or, shall I quote my coworker again, "retro, baby!"

This week, analogies are tough because this album is doing so many interesting new things for me. What a dang joy! "Sometimes" made me feel a bit brighter on what felt like a heavy Tuesday morning. This album is a carnival of sounds, but they have meaning and purpose. They collide in a kaleidoscope of moments that were edgy, and poppy, and fun, and creepy at times. And where I'm usually scared of everything, this album veered just light enough for my little heart to handle. "Salt" felt comforting, but I think it's because it has Guster-y vibes. "I tried to take it with a grain of salt / But the lid came off..." are just one of the many lyrical moments off this album that took the cliché and flipped it on its head. 

The final lines of "Software," and of the album, really clarify the whole point for me—and maybe it's why I liked this album so early on. "Sometimes it feels like God is a DJ / And tribulation is his favorite song / Light my night light / Please let me pretend / This is gonna end well." What a bold move on the part of Nick Lutsko to tell us, in the last song of the album, how his album would end ("this is gonna end well"), while quite literally saying how everything is awful at the same time. This is the kind of flip in lyrics, and poetry, that I dig. We've heard "God is DJ" before, but "and tribulation is his favorite song" slays me dead. "Light my night light," is so sad and repetitive and longing. It is childish and scared while also being hopeful and bright. 

Much like the carnival elements to this album, life makes us balance the goofy with the devastating. Astrological talk warning: My Moon is in Gemini so I guess I am as emotionally contradictory, debating, and fickle, as this album teeters. 

Or maybe, regardless of Moon placement, life is also weird, dark, funky, and a little beautiful.

5 out of 5 S-Words