The reunited \u201990s group\u2019s sixth album finds the shoegaze pioneers treading a familiar sound but with more comfort and accessibility than many similar efforts. \u201cMary Winter,\u201d in particular, is one of the better efforts in the genre that I\u2019ve heard in a long while, melding noisy grunge with an immersive sound that is neither bleak nor too fuzzed-out to stick the landing\u2026and it\u2019s only the first song.<\/p>\n
Much of Future Ruins <\/i>follows that sonic template, and if it doesn\u2019t break a lot of new ground, it consolidates the strengths Swervedriver has brought to this genre. Lyrically, the disc covers modern disconnection and how to find hope in a world that\u2019s crumbling, but not really in a specific way, so the vocals tend to blend in to the overall sound (\u201cThe Lonely Crowd Fades In The Air,\u201d the title track). <\/p>\n
For this genre, such ambience is expected. Bands like Yes would often sing words that were meant to be part of the sonic tapestry instead of poems to be dissected for deep meaning, and so the same goes for this album. The best shoegaze music is immersive and expansive, as is the best progressive rock, and if Swervedriver falls into the former camp almost exclusively, the scope and sound is admirable. \u201cFuture Ruins\u201d is a song you can close your eyes and get lost in, a song that helps you block out the world (especially on headphones) and go on a ride. <\/p>\n
For comparative touchstones \u2013 since these guys weren\u2019t even well-known in their heyday \u2013 one could point to My Bloody Valentine, maybe early Smashing Pumpkins, perhaps Mogwai or Dinosaur Jr. I also would add mid-career Pink Floyd, not as a musical touchstone but in the sensibility of creating a sonic universe within a single song. But Swervedriver is far apart from all of those bands at the same time, and that\u2019s what makes this album so good.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheeascending,\u201d for example, starts as a slow gray rocker but intercuts its choruses with noisy fuzz guitars and unexpected melodic changes, ending on a full minute-long psychedelic jam session where the buzzsaw guitars roar and the keyboards shimmy and then darkness, bam. \u201cGolden Remedy\u201d follows a similar pattern to similar results; both are good, and you can pick either one and be satisfied.<\/p>\n
The drawback to this sort of music is its lack of diversity. Swervedriver may be versatile and adept at refining a sound they helped create, and the strengths are obvious, but over the course of an album the songs begin to blur together. After the first four songs, \u201cDrone Lover\u201d is just more of the same, and while the punchy \u201cSpiked Flower\u201d livens the mood a bit, neither it nor the Bowie-ish drone of \u201cEverybody\u2019s Going Somewhere & No-One\u2019s Going Anywhere\u201d really excite, though I suppose the latter would have fit well on Blackstar<\/i>. But boy, this album sure could use a \u201cLast Train To Satansville\u201d or two.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood Times Are So Hard to Follow\u201d tries for a \u201860s vibe meets, kind of like a Byrds-meets-Pet Sounds<\/i>-meets the Pumpkins\u2019 \u201cDrown,\u201d and it\u2019s not bad just for that effort. \u201cRadio-Silent\u201d goes for that ol\u2019 epic closer vibe, but seven minutes of the same five-second guitar figure gets a bit monotonous no matter how many layers are piled on (Note: For an example of how these guys can do an epic album closer right, check out \u201cNever Lose That Feeling\u201d from 1993\u2019s Mezcal Head<\/i>). <\/p>\n
The album doesn\u2019t end by inspiring hope, but it doesn\u2019t sink into despair either, dissolving into police sirens and a feeling of \u201cWhat now?\u201d Perhaps that\u2019s the point, that we don\u2019t really know how to make the world a better place, and it\u2019s better to get lost for a while instead. That lack of an overall concept hurts the album a bit, but for an album to get lost in, this is easily the best one of 2019 so far and a very good late-career effort from a pioneering band.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":33721,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[10319],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-45542","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-swervedriver","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45542"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45542"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}