Swim Deep - To My Brother. Single review

yes, that really is the artwork

Remember when the Strokes dropped the first single off  'Comedown Machine? I cannot remember the song or it's title very well. At the time it felt utterly ridiculous, the curveball of 'Angles' was a surprise too, yet I am a big fan of that album, But 'One way Ticket', (I think it was called) was just ludicrous. Yet it worked well within the confines of what was a very disappointing record, and proved to be one of it's highlights. Now Swim Deep have dropped a similar curve-ball.  I must confess that for a while now I've lost interest in Swim Deep, they've been absent from the Birmingham scene for nearly a year now and their Début was a promising, but not exactly mind blowing record. Yet in places it was brilliant.

The first new taster from the new (Title TBC, Date TBC) second album, picks up where the last one left off, All clean production, melodies, and druggy positivity. Yet it's erm, shit. The bands live drums have been replaced by a sort of Andrew Weatherall style drum loop. Austin's vocals are lacklustre and buried way too deep in the mix. There's hardly any guitar, and there seems to be about 5 layers of keyboards. Even in the middle of a 90's revival it sounds dated. Yet underneath all this production,  and beats and stuff is a song that wouldn't wow me  if played on an acoustic, nothing about it lingers in the memory.  In fact I think Swim Deep aren't really a rock band at all any-more. 

Maybe after a few more listens I might love it. Maybe it might work better as part of the album, maybe it's an early mix which might be replaced with something better later on.  I'm going to be right back. I'm gonna take some acid, and listen to it again*.

*Don't do drugs kids. 

On a more positive note, the new Peace album has arrived at my house, expect a full review shortly.