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Twenty years into their career as indie music’s most respected stewards of ska, soul and rocksteady music, The Slackers still keep it simple: no roadies, no entourage, no major label.
Yet this gang of New York remains inventive—they’re modest enough to play local bars but too worldly not to fill them in places like Berlin. It was there last fall The Slackers recorded in two days what would become their tenth, and finest, album. The Great Rocksteady Swindle finds the band perfecting its ever-evolving blueprint of rocksteady—’60s Rastafari dance music with more pep than reggae but less step than ska.
"We had just finished a two-week tour of Europe, so the band was playing at top form. Perfect time to get in a studio and record," says drummer Ara Babajian.
Chalk it up to post-tour momentum or the intimate German surroundings, but this album captures a much more cohesive Slackers lineup. For the first time, all six members—including Glen Pine on trombone and vocals, guitarist Jay Nugent, bassist Marcus Geard and tenor saxophonist David Hillyard—brought their own song ideas to the table. The Slackers’ decision to make a no-frills album half a world away from Brooklyn might also explain how they managed to pull off their best recording in almost two decades.
"It kept everybody away from home," says band leader Vic Ruggiero, who founded the group in 1991. "It kept everybody concentrated."
The Slackers’ signature sound builds on Ruggiero’s bouncy electric organ and Geard’s walking bassline on songs like "Tool Shed." The band’s raw rendition of Bill Withers’ "Ain’t No Sunshine" would fit right in with Tarantino’s next movie soundtrack, while Babajian’s "Mr. Tragedy"—Swindle‘s catchiest tune—pairs Pine’s heartfelt crooning with Ruggiero’s throaty, sinister vocal over an intoxicating backbeat.
"Do you remember how it feels to be lonely/Oh, so lonely," Ruggiero belts out on the Skatalites-infused album opener "How It Feels," a danceable heartbreaker from the song’s first snare stroke. Pine exhibits more vocal range than ever on his beautiful "Anastasia," a ballad of a mother’s sacrifice, and wails from the gut on the garage rocker "Bo Evil," which sounds like a long lost 13th Floor Elevators outtake.
While moments of wandering experimentation might prevent 2008’s Self Medication from fully engaging new Slackers listeners, The Great Rocksteady Swindle finds the band executing its most focused and accessible set to date. Hillyard’s soulful "Daddy," Nugent’s upbeat "The Same Everyday" and Geard’s poignant "TV Dinner Song" stand as some of the band’s most remarkable material since The Question and Peculiar. The brightest moment here hits with an instant reggae masterpiece called "Cheated," a sort of dark and psychedelic "Stir It Up." But The Slackers prove they do more than marry the Jamaican spice of The Wailers with the English ska of The Specials—they’re working hard to keep their rocksteady movement alive. Depression never sounded so good.
