After a long gestation, Diet Cig unleashes its debut full-length
Three years ago, nascent guitarist/songwriter Alex Luciano attended a house show in her New Paltz, N.Y., hometown to see indie-rock band Earl Boykins. Luciano stopped them mid-set to ask drummer Noah Bowman if he had a lighter, an off-the-cuff exchange that resulted in the formation of guitar/drums duo Diet Cig.
The pair quickly recorded their first seven-inch and the Over Easy EP with friend Chris Daly in his New Paltz studio, then spent months booking every available show and learning how to play and write together. The payoff for their hard work and diligence is their blistering LP, Swear I’m Good At This, again with Daly, which shows that Diet Cig has retained a raw, garage-stained immediacy while exhibiting amazing growth within its simple yet powerful songs.
“We’ve gotten a little more cohesive musically,” says Luciano. “We’ve learned to write together, and our songs are a little more thought out and intentional. I think we learned to listen to each other’s instruments instead of doing our own thing and hoping it turned into a song.”
For Bowman, drumming behind Luciano wasn’t substantially different from his previous band experiences. It was simply a matter of finding the intersection of their individual directions and turning it into Diet Cig.
“We’re meshing together better,” says Bowman. “I’m playing off her new strengths. My style and Alex’s style have become one thing, and we have a better understanding of who we are and what our sound is after the last year of touring.”
Although the majority of songs on Swear I’m Good At This clock in around two minutes, Luciano increases the melodic classicism in her vocals and the direct expression in her guitar work. That gives Bowman leeway to provide expansive rhythms.
“We had a lot more confidence going into this record,” he says. “On the song ‘Link In Bio,’ I get to stretch out a little bit because she’s stretching out a little bit. It gets a little more fun.”
—Brian Baker
