Quantcast

Call for Music Critics and Music Bloggers

Music
cover art

Suckers

Suckers EP

(Iamsound; US: 14 Apr 2009; UK: Available as import)

Suckers and Girls may be this year’s Yeasayer and MGMT. Two young groups with only a few songs released each, Suckers and Girls have each generated a fair amount of interest in as-yet-announced long-players. What makes both groups exciting, apart from a couple of killer singles (“Hellhole Ratrace”, “It Gets Your Body Movin’”) is their patience. Though Suckers is cut from a familiar Brooklyn psych-indie mould that incorporates shouty vocals, electronic instrumentation, and free-flowing structures, the group’s obviously enamoured of the easy beauty of long melodic lines, off-center horns, and singing, all together, in a slow-motion sort of celebration. Oh, and their melodies seem to be all somehow brilliant sing-a-long anthems.


The vocalist, Quinn Walker, must have grown up listening to David Byrne, to Talking Heads; but his self-introduction on Suckers EP is impressive in its breadth. With hardly an effort he slides from hung-over slur to carefree exuberance. You can’t help but be buoyed up with him.


Each of the four tracks on Suckers EP have a similar anthemic quality, but importantly, hint at other directions that the group could explore on a full length album. The opening of “Afterthoughts & TV”, reluctantly dragged-through-mud with an Animal Collective-esque electronic warble: a killer ballad. “Easy Chairs”’ plodding bass-line: pop radio nostalgia. The rickety change-ups of instrumentation on “Beach Queen”: a curious, interest-sparking knack for sniffing out novelty.


And we haven’t even touched on the group’s most fully realized song, “It Gets Your Body Movin’”, which closes Suckers EP. Not just that song, but the whole EP deserves a close listen—this is a first impression that only whets appetite for what’s to come. Pay careful attention.

Rating:

Dan Raper has been writing about music for PopMatters since 2005. Prior to that he did the same thing for his college newspaper and for his school newspaper before that. Of course he also writes fiction, though his only published work is entitled "Gamma-secretase exists on the plasma membrane as an intact complex that accepts substrates and effects intramembrane cleavage". He is currently studying medicine at the University of Sydney, Australia.


Tagged as: suckers ep
Media

Suckers - "It Gets Your Body Movin'" (Live at Union Pool, Brooklyn)
Related Articles
By Matthew Fiander and Arnold Pan
29 Mar 2012
In a month known for celebrating musical independence with Record Store Day, it's appropriate that April's most anticipated releases are by independent voices both familiar and new.
9 Jun 2010
That thing on your face while you listen to this infectious, unwieldy set of songs? I believe Suckers titled the album after that.
10 May 2010
Coming off their highly acclaimed debut LP, Gorilla Manor, Los Angeles' Local Natives jumped on stage to a sold out Bowery Ballroom last Thursday. After having played that album about 100 times now, I and the thousand or so other fans in the build were ready to scream our heads off.
Comments
Now on PopMatters
Call for Music Critics and Music Bloggers (Announcements) [Tue, 3:00 pm]
Bone and Bell Release Second EP (Mixed Media) [Tue, 10:00 am]
Cannes 2012: Day 9 - 'Student' + 'In the Fog' (Notes from the Road) [Tue, 9:00 am]
The 10 Greatest Aspects of the 'Star Wars' Franchise (Short Ends and Leader) [Tue, 8:00 am]
Devil May Cry: HD Collection (Reviews) [Tue, 6:45 am]
The Walkmen: Heaven (Reviews) [Tue, 2:00 am]
  1. The Top 10 Overplayed Songs You Hate by Artists You Love (Sound Affects)
  2. Tea with 'Sherlock': Investigating the Investigators (Features)
  3. Sunk? This 'Battleship' Stunk! (Short Ends and Leader)
  4. Tenacious D: Rize of the Fenix (Reviews)
  5. Top Ten Lost Midwest Punk Singles (Sound Affects)
  6. Like 'Doom', In Heels (Moving Pixels)
  7. 10 Pieces of Cinematic Art That Require Revisiting (Short Ends and Leader)
  8. Punk Rock's Pet Sounds: An Interview with Bomb the Music Industry! (Features)
  9. She's a Rainbow: A Tribute to Donna Summer (Features)
  10. Counterbalance No. 82: U2's 'Achtung Baby' (Sound Affects)
  11. 'Albatross': A Not-So-Weighty Coming-of-Age Meets Mid-Life-Crisis Film (Reviews)
  12. Counterbalance No. 83: The Stooges' 'Fun House' (Sound Affects)
  13. We Will Avenge Them Or… Be Avenged?: The Individual in the US Experience (Features)
  14. The Queen and Her Crayons: An Interview With Donna Summer (Features)
  15. The Best Canadian Records of the Year? The Fun Agony of Voting for the Polaris Prize Long List (Sound Affects)
  16. Killer Mike: R.A.P. Music (Reviews)
  17. Flash Points: Mommy's Breast, Marriage Equality and Why Chipotle Is King (Features)
  18. Sherlock Holmes, Dirk Gently and the Case of the Eccentric Detective (Columns)
  19. Sergio Leone: Something to Do with Death (Columns)
  20. Early Summer 2012 New Music Playlist (Mixed Media)
  21. The 10 Greatest Aspects of the 'Star Wars' Franchise (Short Ends and Leader)
  22. In Support of Supports (Moving Pixels)
  23. Flash Points: Chicks, Sluts and Facebook (Features)
  24. In Defense Of... Rock Radio: A Force in Popular Culture (Columns)
  25. The Cult: Choice of Weapon (Reviews)
  26. Garbage: Not Your Kind of People (Reviews)
  27. Saint Etienne: Words and Music (Reviews)
  28. Willie Nelson: Heroes (Reviews)
  29. 'People's Pornography': The Mundanities of Pornography and Surveillance Culture (Reviews)
  30. Feeling '80s Spirit: Post-Hardcore Punk for the Plastic Generation (Columns)
PM Picks
Music Archive
Announcements

© 1999-2012 PopMatters.com. All rights reserved.
PopMatters.com™ and PopMatters™ are trademarks
of PopMatters Media, Inc.

PopMatters is wholly independently owned and operated.
PopMatters is a member of BUZZMEDIA Music, MOG and Guardian Select.