Sunday, December 26, 2004

Vinegar And Kit-Kats



It's almost inevitable that Animals That Swim have never got the recognition they deserve. When your songs deal with life's losers, the downtrodden, and beaten down there's no way your own career is going to scale any giddy heights, at least not commercially. I think their three albums are some of the most under-rated I own. Appearing around the same time as Tindersticks, both bands exist in a similar world of life with a seedy edge but Animals That Swim also display a sense of the absurd that makes them stand alone. Their lyrics are wonderful short stories as these two songs demonstrate, "Faded Glamour" tells the story of every English town with victorian-era terraced housing, while "Roy" recounts a chance meeting with the other man in black which perfectly highlights the band's humor.

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