Suckers

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 April 24, 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.

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And that’s essentially the story of Suckers: instantaneous impact that can obscure 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 environment of the suburbs of New Haven, CT, while enigmatic bassist/utilityman Pan lived about twenty minutes away. Though raised in the shadow of Yale, the three were inspired 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 Metropolitan Museum of Art, while Walker released a solo double-album to considerable underground acclaim on 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’,” an infectious singalong that detonated on contact in the blogosphere, a timeless song that began their incredibly 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. Fisher rightfully calls the time between the EP and their 2010 debut Wild Smile “a blur,” which culminated with the band being the toast of SXSW after wowing the festival with their kinetic live performances, Walker’s stratospheric falsetto and uncanny, wildly colorful stage presence. You could hear hints of the twitchy experimentalism of Talking Heads, David Bowie’s flamboyant persona and a vocal range that spanned from Kate Bush’s spectral incantations to Bono’s populism, and though referential of Walker and Fisher’s idols, it sounded like little else. As Fisher 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 Suckers’ older records aren’t subject to the band’s aversion to replication.