Search - Suckers :: Candy Salad

Besides being a signature song for Suckers, ''It Gets Your Body Movin''' is a mission statement for the band as well. Ever since slowly coalescing in Brooklyn four years ago, they've been restless experimenters, thriving on creative momentum. And while the trio's just-completed sophomore album Candy Salad, due out in 2012 on Frenchkiss, is a remarkable progression from their auspiciously far-flung debut Wild Smile, it's every bit as indicative of how they're powered by the uncertainty of paradox. It's a more mature work than Wild Smile according to the band, yet mostly because of its directness and simplicity, a warmer record that's the result of intense studio work, the product of a lot of time and effort, while seeming almost effortless. And that's exentially the story of Suckers: instantaneous impact that can obsure the tremendous evolution that preceded it. Vocalists Austin Fisher and Quinn Walker grew up down the road from each other in the alternately enlightened and grim envirionment of New Haven, while enigmatic bassist/utility man Pan lived about twenty minutes away. Though raised in the shadow of Yale, the three were ispired to seek the kind of cultural stimulus one could only acquire hours away in New York City. Upon arrival, they soon immersed themselves fully in the city's unpredictable and volatile intersection of art and music - Fisher would spend off hours working at the Guggenheim and the Voodoo-Eros, the label run by influential avant-pop band CocoRosie. And while those early days of hashing out material previously written by Fisher and Walker were formative, it wasn't until they started composing from scratch as a trio that Suckers truly began to take shape. The first song they wrote together became ''It Gets Your Body Movin','' and infectuous singalong that detonated on contact in the blogosphere, a timeless song that began their incredible timely trajectory within the internet's hype cycle. It would become the linchpin of their 2009 self-titled EP, produced by Anand Wilder of Yeasayer and a crucial document of where the band was it in that still fetal stage. You could hear hints of the twitchy experimentalism of Talking Heads, David Bowie's flamboyant persona and vocal range that spanned from Kate Bush's spectral incantations to Bono's popularism, and though referential of Walker and Fischer's idols, it sounded like little else. As Fischer puts it, ''if we think something is starting to sound overtly like another band, we change direction.'' Indeed, the immensely tuneful and lyrically ambitious Candy Salad represents such a marked change in direction that even Sucker's older records aren't subject to the band's aversion to replication. Unlike Wild Smile, which featured songs from culled together from various studio sessions, the band hunkered down at Vacation Island in Williamsburg with Matt Boynton (Black Dice, MGMT). The intent was to formulate something more cohesive and warm and from the majestic Brit-pop of ''Lydia'' to the charging Eno-esque ''Figure It Out,'' to ''Going Nowhere,'' their most new straightforward song to date despite removing the bass ''When Doves Cry''-style, they've achieved something totally new for the band while maintaining the buoyancy and pop smarts of Wild Smile. Obviously, can't wait for their fans to hear it, partly because they want to share it - Walker hopes you live it, Fisher hopes you get the lyrics tatooed on your back and Pan hopes it's a ''future classic'' - and partly because they've already got their sights on what's next, perpectual bodies in motion.