The origin story of Diet Cig centers around an interaction in which guitarist Alex Luciano interrupted drummer Noah Bowman during a show to ask for a lighter. This anecdote is an odd way to introduce your band. It suggests a double standard that it’s okay for women to interrupt men while they’re playing but you know if the tables were turned Twitter would be all up in arms. Nevertheless, the pair hit it off and began making music together in their then-hometown of New Paltz, NY. This led to 2015’s Over Easy EP, five jangly tracks about young adult anxieties and scene politics. It was an inoffensive introduction that spawned relentless touring, a bubbly social media presence, and Luciano’s trademark high kick off the bass drum.
Diet Cig’s debut record Swear I’m Good at This suggests that little growth has occurred in the time since. As its title implies, the album acknowledges the desire to defend oneself against presumed inadequacies. But there is little here to convince listeners that Diet Cig are actually worth your time. They make music that could be called punk-informed indie pop because it is quick, loud, and simple while asserting the DIY attitude that anyone can play music. It’s not that they sound bad: Bowman is an experienced, tight drummer and Luciano’s bouncy guitar playing makes the duo sound like a four-piece. The larger problem is that over these 12 songs, Diet Cig are the heavy-handed musical equivalent of the pussy hat: a well-meaning feminist gesture that lacks all nuance.
Swear I’m Good at This fumbles that which makes indie pop so meaningful. A melding of thoughtful intimacy, roaring hooks, and arena-level energy delivered in a basement can provide transformative salvation for the underdogs. The strongest songwriters provide a snow globe-sized glimpse into their world. The subject matter can be as simple as a rainy day spent inside building a diorama or as complex as an existential crisis, but for these stories to communicate any value they need to be vivid, deliberate, and fleshed-out by perspective. Simply weaving together a catalogue of small, observational details means nothing if there’s no emotion ascribed to them.
Additionally, there’s a fine line between being honest or diaristic and just sounding self-absorbed. Unfortunately, Diet Cig are stuck in the latter category. They give the most trivially vanilla lyrics the highest stakes, as if anything can be an anthem. On “Barf Day” Luciano exalts to the rafters, “I just wanna have ice cream on my birthday/Blow the candles out and wish all of my pain away.” The cute hook flails in the air, powerful in execution but powerless in its result. The acoustic number “Apricots” offers an anecdote about feeling homesick and besotted, which leads to a trip to the supermarket to take comfort in buying the fruit. The apricots could represent Luciano’s fears of rotting away, but this object lays flat on the surface of the song instead of being woven into its moving parts. This is a running theme across the record.
Luciano and Bowman check off the indie pop boxes on rollicking songs like “Bite Back” and “Blob Zombie,” and though these songs are likable little pop succulents, they lack anything to identify them from the many other indie pop songs who helped bear Diet Cig into existence. Luciano and Bowman sell their music as empowering, rebellious, vulnerable, and life-affirming, but their songs read like hollow, vampiric feminist messages. One of the worst offenders arrives on the closing track “Tummy Ache,” in which Luciano declares, “It’s hard to be a punk while wearing a skirt.” Clearly, this line is meant to acknowledge that those who identify with femininity have always faced adversity. Without negating the sentiment, the line comes off as an uninformed dismissal of the battles femmes have fought and won for decades.
It’s difficult to criticize a band for saying things that are by all means correct and likable on the surface. Yes, you should own everything you are. Sure, you can sell felt Black Lives Matter patches on Etsy. And the line on “Maid of the Mist” that goes, “I am bigger than the outside shell of my body and if you touch it without asking then you’ll be sorry” is absolutely correct. Diet Cig’s audience should find the message in the music liberating, but Diet Cig’s debut is almost entirely made of other people’s gestures hastily collected and cheaply executed. Hand it to Luciano and Bowman, they pull off a caper with impressive energy and confidence.
