Michael Slawter - Assassination

Michael Slawter has been on the indie power pop scene for over a decade, fronting the excellent The Saving Graces and Niedermeyer and now he joins us on this wonderful solo outing, entitled �An Assassination Of Someone You Knew�. "Slawter clearly holds a doctorate in the dialect of pop. From the opening cut, �Count T0 10�, a buoyant love devotional awash in cross-cutting strums and a tune that could pass for one of Tommy Keene�s great anthems, through album closer �Crashing Down�, a break up song with Searchers-style jangles and luminous harmony vocals, the album transports me back and makes me feel things I haven�t felt in ages. All the women I�ve known - puppy loves, passionate affairs, unrequited romances, even passing fantasies � seem to find their own soundtracks here. There�s the rock chick who poses and pouts in front of the mirror playing guitar to T. Rex records in power pop chugger �She Thinks She�s Cool� and there�s the sophisticate who steals the singer�s soul, love at the first site, in the Windbreakers-like �Leave Her Alone�. It�s remarkable how Slawter, with a sweet, urgent vocal style and a knack for memorable riffs and classic arrangement, draws those feelings out of me. He was previously spotted in The Saving Graces, a tight power pop unit of whom, in my enthusiasm, I probably uttered a clich� or two. I do recall leading off a review of their last record with the question, �Who said sell-crafted, heartfelt jangly pop was a dying artform?� (Raise your hand if you spot the clich�s) The same rhetorical query could be proposed for The Assassination Of Someone You Knew. But I�ll let another critic tackle that one. This time, I just wanted to write from the heart.�-Fred Mills, Magnet. A truly high-brow event that challenges the ear and heart at all turns, Extremely Highly Recommended.

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