AUDIO: The Swellers – “B-Sides And Rarities”
The Swellers are a hard working band with a really likeable story. After some label troubles, the band was left in limbo, until ultimately making a go of it as a self-managed band on No Sleep Records. Since then, they’ve been working hard on new releases, and in between they’ve recently put out a collection of unreleased tracks and b-sides. This is a fun release, because it still sounds like The Swellers, but the differences between the demos and the final versions are pretty great. There’s Jono Diener’s bedroom demo of “Parkview” that he described on Twitter as a failed attempt at Garageband drum programming, and that’s very apparent when you hear it. The demo for single “The Best I Ever Had” doesn’t have the catchy hook that makes it a single. If you know the words to these songs, you stop yourself and say “Wait, where’s the … what?”, but hey, that’s why these were demos. The b-sides are also great, so make sure you download this. $5 or greater via Bandcamp. Help out a great band.
