RECOMMENDED
The Swimmers’ debut album, “Fighting Trees” (Mad Dragon Records), is a warm-weather, summertime record, peppered with sunny pop melodies, lovable vocal harmonies and keyboard leads and enough indie-pop savvy to rot a child’s teeth. A Magnet magazine “Ten to Watch,” the Philadelphia band takes cues from the usual suspects—The Kinks, The Zombies—and from admirable modern rockers like The New Pornographers, but they remind me of the late, sometimes great Beulah, with all the Beatles-like hooks and sixties pop sensibility. There’s no blow-the-top-of-your-head-off invention here, but “Fighting Trees” is an incredibly solid debut, impressive from front to back, with the pitch-perfect rock song “Home” as its centerpiece, a jumpy but sentimental track that shows just what this band is capable of. (The piano-based “All the New Sounds” shows dexterity as well.) Perhaps the best piece of this puzzle, the secret weapon, is keyboardist Krista Yutzy-Burkey, who takes advantage of her parts and makes them more than just afterthoughts, and whose back-up vocal harmonies radically strengthen the songs. Keep on eye on this band, “Fighting Trees” is a keeper. (Tom Lynch)
Saturday, March 22 at Hideout