The New York pop-punk duo, Diet Cig, have finally graced the world with their debut album Swear I’m Good At This, a title that seriously embodies their charming grunge angst. With their EP Over Easy released in 2014, this album has been a long time coming. The duo, consisting of Alex Luciano (guitar and vocals) and Noah Bowman (drums), are at the forefront of the current female-fronted pop-punk movement and deliver the genre with more charisma than most, mixing cutesy vocals with crass and honest lyrics and a badass bassline.

Swear I’m Good At This mixes girl-power grunge with pop-punk and romantic self-deprecation in a way that reminds you of your first-teen-romances and sitting in the summer sun with a cider respectively. It’s easy to fall in love with Luciano and Bowman’s raw apprehension and unapologetic fumbling over issues surrounding heartache, friendships and misrepresentation. Alongside that, the pair certainly knew what they were doing by releasing this fabulous album just before the spring – as a whole, it is a gorgeous grunge melody perfect for those summertime sadnesses everyone encounters once in their lives.

‘Tummy Ache’, the lead single off the album, sums up the duo’s mantra in a sublime coupling of breezy slacker rock and hard hitting adolescent lyricism. Luciano takes advantage of her gawky cuteness to deliver a track that summarises the band’s ability to create nostalgic grunge with a message that is relatable to, well, girls of almost any age: “I don't need a man to hold my hand/And that's just something you'll never understand”.

Luciano doesn’t stop there with her femme-fatale soaked grunge. ‘Maid Of The Mist’ hears her crooning: "I am bigger than the shell outside my body/And if you touch it without asking/You’ll be sorry.” The melody weaves in and out of a fast-paced marriage of gentle synth, drums and Luciano’s soft vocals: “I wanna hold a séance/With every heart I’ve broken/Put them all in a room/And say get over it”. The punk-pop genre really comes through in this track and compliments the matter of fact lyrics that make even the sweetest of vocals sound badass: “I’m fine/you’re alive/You’ll be ok/In some time.”

The whole album has an essence of bite to it, as if Luciano is kicking back at any criticism toward her in her love life and the music industry. ‘Link In Bio’ is a feisty track that directly calls out the music industry in a punch-packing marriage of fast drums and clever songwriting: “I'm not being dramatic/I've just fucking had it/With the things that you say you think that I should be”. This particular track almost sounds as though it has elements of thrash metal in it, with an endless drum line that never stops. It works well to demonstrate the duo’s frustration with the industry in general, or particularly with their experience as a small band.

That aside, Luciano doesn’t deprive those who were yearning for some cutesy pop-punk on this album. A particular sickeningly sweet ode to novelty issues is ‘Barf Day’, a pulsating track in which Luciano hums over the top: “I just wanna have ice cream on my birthday/Blow the candles out and wish all of my pain away”.

Diet Cig are a girl-grunge marriage of relatable lyrics and kick-ass drum tracks that are almost impossible not to dance along too. Swear I’m Good At This will undoubtedly be the summer soundtrack to a fair few fans, it embodies the cutesy Diet Cig-esque charm we’ve all come to know and love all the while maintaining an air of ‘Fuck You’ to more than one issue in everyday life.
Sian Blewitt

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