Swiz

I got to know about Swiz by proxy when I discovered Sweet Jesus, one of the myriad of bands featuring Pat Flynn on vocals. I remember reading reviews citing Swiz as a big influence. I’d only heard the name of the band but never listened to them until then. Since I really loved Sweet Jesus, it was kind of a given that I like Swiz as well. However, their full length records are a little hard to come by and as much as I like the band, shelling out 100 bucks for Hell Yes I Cheated was out of question for me. 

When one of my favorite record stores / mailorders in Germany announced they might get a Swiz box set, done by Dischord no less, I was all over this. I wrote one of the guys running Bis Aufs Messer and he said he couldn’t make any promises but he’d put me on the waiting list. Great guy that Robert is, he contacted me a couple of months later out of the blue and said the box sets would ship soon and asked if I was still interested. Hell, yes, I was still interested! As everything Dischord does, this is a high quality product. The box is well done, the records look and sound great and the booklet is incredible. The box set wasn’t cheap, but it cost still less on what I’d have paid on just the first Swiz LP, so it was money well spent. 

Box Set (All Records on Black Vinyl) on Dischord /???

Swiz

Lately, I've been listening to a lot of bands that have credited Swiz as their influences, so why not go straight to the source? First up is the first 7" Swiz released. The music, and especially the voice sounds, a lot like early Dag Nasty, which is not that big a surprise considering that Swiz singer Shawn Brown was the original singer for Dag Nasty. Great DC hardcore from the late '80s, although a little rawer and faster than Dag Nasty or the first wave of Emocore bands from that era. Other than on clear green this record was also pressed on blue and gold vinyl as far as colours go. Originally this also came with a short comic book, which you can see in the lower left corner.

I also got the 2nd 7" Swiz released. It's still good, but not as powerful as the first 7" in my opinion. Just the regular version for this one. There's also a variant on blue vinyl.