This month, indie rock duo Diet Cig released its long-awaited debut LP, “Swear I’m Good At This.” The duo has been around since 2014, and has previously released one EP and several singles, garnering them a cult following. In fact, if there were any truly indie band you’d be most likely to hear on WKNC in the coming weeks, this would probably be it. Despite not previously having any full-length albums, Diet Cig has been a mainstay in the indie rock scene since around early 2015, and it’s not hard to spot one of the group’s shirts being worn at a local house show.
Because of Diet Cig’s diehard popularity within the scene, it’s easy to see how there would be excitement revolving around the release of this album. The question is, “does it fulfill fans’ expectations?” It’s hard for me to answer, as I’ve never been a huge fan of Diet Cig, and am not familiar with its previous releases as much as many others might be. However, I can say that “Swear I’m Good At This” does appear to be very in line with the band’s prior sound.
With guitar and vocals by Alex Luciano and drums by Noah Bowman, the duo creates an unmistakably rich sound. While many duos fail to come across as a full-fledged band, Diet Cig doesn’t let the number of band members impact the fullness of its sound. There’s no sacrifice in quality or concept with this duo, and that’s a very respectable feat.
Diet Cig describes itself as “pop-touched punk jams” that will “tear you away from the soul-sucking sanctity of your dumpster-fire life.” Whether or not the duo accomplishes this with “Swear I’m Good At This” is up to you, but its self-reported genres seem fairly accurate. The songs on this album, as with their earlier discography, start off with a light, indie-pop sounding introductory section that lasts for the length of the first verse or so, giving way to the heavy punk sounding chorus. It’s a very similar structure to what grunge bands would use in the ‘90s, Nirvana in particular describing it as “quiet-loud-quiet.” Get as soft as you can for the verse, as loud as you can for the chorus, and then back to the softness of the verse, with variation up to the writer’s discretion.
This structure works well for the group, allowing each song to express a wider range of emotions and concepts within a single song, and using the different sections of each song to contrast them. It’s like taking a black and white photograph and making it so that the black spots are blacker and the white spots are whiter. Everything ends up looking (or in this case, sounding) much more distinct.
The songs themselves have a decent amount of variety, though for some listeners like myself, they blend together just a little bit about two-thirds of the way through the album. Regardless, the aggressive, distorted guitar and upbeat drumming of the all-out sections on this album make for some great punk jams. Similarly, the soft sections are soft and pretty, but also compelling. Alex’s voice floats in wistfully, complemented by soft guitar instrumentation and minimal drumming, only to speed up and get louder during the next section of each song. It works well, and will be very appealing to the right audience. Fans of Diet Cig in particular should be very pleased.
However, it’s not a perfect album. If you’re not already a fan of Diet Cig, this album may come off as somewhat generic, derivative of artists like Bikini Kill, The Kills, Honeyblood or Hop Along. While this album certainly has its own value and sound, it does borrow a lot from the bands that likely influenced Diet Cig. It’s not incredibly unique in any sense, but that’s perfectly fine. It’s a good refinement of the indie power-pop, pop-punk genres, taking the elements of those genres that make them good and blending them together with great skill to make a very well-polished album. If you’re a fan of any of the bands previously mentioned and you’re hesitant to give this album a shot, try it out anyway. It may not surprise you, but you’ll probably enjoy it anyway.
