Swim Deep - Where The Heaven Are We?

Photo courtesy of Allmusic

And so it arrives. The new album from Brummie lads Swim Deep is finally here. Having built up an impressive fan base largely comprised of dreamy females either in the throes of adolescence or in their 20s - I by no means except myself from this crowd - Swim Deep come from humble beginnings; lead singer Austin Williams and guitarist Tom Higgins met stacking shelves in Morrisons'. Perhaps that's why their album is so full of wistful riffs and escapism.

For Swim Deep, it's all about escapism. Their name itself evokes fantastic imagery of beautiful underwater scenes and, to some extent, their music certainly lives up to that. Each and every track contains some hint of wishing for a better life. In Honey, it's "don't just dream in your sleep, it's just lazy". In King City, it's "fuck your romance, I want to pretend that Jenny Lee Lindberg is my girlfriend". In Colour Your Ways, it's "life ain't beige so colour your days and see it in the right light". It's got the catchy tunes, the hazy images and the wistful romance needed to make for the perfect summer album.

Source: Allmusic

Many of the old favourites, like King City, are still just as brilliant in their composition. However, Swim Deep seem like good-time guys, they're all about having fun. On touring with Spector and Two Door Cinema Club, they say it was "just touring with your best friends for 30 days. It was insane" - hence the fantastically dreamy outlook of the album. You do get the feeling, though, that if they'd spent a bit more time on a few of the songs, the album wouldn't just be good, it would be incredible. That's the only criticism I have to make of this album; it's a little frustrating, as there is huge potential for many songs. Soul Trippin', for example, has the beginnings of a brilliant ballad, but if they'd only tweaked little bits here and there, it could have become an amazing one. As a listener, there are points in the album where you wait for the songs to take off and they just don't.

That said, each song has its own merit, whether it's the wonderful lyrics that urge you to make something of yourself (Colour Your Ways, The Sea and Stray come to mind) or the fantastic bass or guitar riff. I adore Swim Deep, and I am incredibly proud of their debut album. I can only hope that they'll continue on this upward trajectory with the next ones.

Rating: 7.5/10

Recommended Tracks:
Soul Trippin'
Make My Sun Shine
Intro

Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires Of The City

Source: Vampire Weekend

And so they return! With much rejoicing from my corner, because I love Vampire Weekend. No point in beating around the bush. This new album bears much more resemblance to Contra, featuring more pop-y sounds rather than their self-titled first album, which was more Paul Simon with a 2008 twist. However, there may be a resemblance to the last album, but this one is by no means along the same vein. It's much darker, much more introspective, as though they sat down having a good old bitch session about all the shit that happened to them in the three years since Contra was released. Whatever they did, it worked because this is genuinely their best album yet. It's gaining popularity, having debuted at Number 1 in the charts and sold 134,000 copies and counting. The proof is in the pudding.

The pace is much slower than their previous two albums, although they deliver the dancing goods in Diane Young. The official stream of the video before the album's release caused a fair amount of controversy; it pictured two burning 900-series Saabs as the infectious track played over the top of the visual - to anyone confused by this, the first lyric is "you torched a Saab like a pile of leaves". They received a huge amount of criticism from loving Saab owners; one Jalopnik article carried the headline "Vampire Weekend Are a Bunch of Dicks". All this for burning a couple of old, disused cars with, as frontman Ezra Koenig acknowledged in an interview with Spinner, "a lot of electrical problems".

The song, as a brilliant combination of rock and the pop melodies of previous tracks like Giving Up The Gun, is utterly deserving of the debate surrounding the ethics of its video. All good music should generate some sort of controversy, or you're doing something wrong. They experiment properly with vocal effects for the first time in the bridge, and the pitch fluctuations add that unmistakable Vampire Weekend touch. Not that it's their typical sound, but it exhibits their flair at exploring musical mediums and how to adapt them to their advantage.

The content of the songs has become much more thoughtful and grown-up, especially in the way that they approach their own material; a good example of this is Hudson. It references the recent economic crisis in Europe, saying "we watched the Germans play the Greeks". Their ability to make heavy topics such as these seem poetic and lyrical is a testament to their abilities. It's also the first song that they've ever written in a minor key. This in itself is a milestone, as it shows that Vampire Weekend aren't just there for the good times, they're there when you need a hug from Ezra Koenig's voice. Something we all need at one time or another.

Source: Huffington Post

Modern Vampires Of The City seems to be a significant move away from their image as posh boys living in a bubble of privilege and Lacoste shirts. This is done in very subtle ways, such as mispronouncing "we worshipped you" to make it "we worshopped you" in Worship You. They open with a slightly slower song, Obvious Bicycle, contrasting the other albums which opened with catchier, dancier tunes like Mansard Roof and Horchata. As I said before, the pace is much slower, but the ebbs and flows of the different songs allows for a much more mature and thoughtful side of Vampire Weekend to come through. They've always been very intellectual in their approach to songs (one particularly good example is Oxford Comma) but here it's much more exposed, much more open. Ya Hey's biblical imagery and the failures of  America's capitalist attitude provides a bittersweet outlook on modern life.

Not only have Vampire Weekend themselves changed, but the music has changed with them. The use of a drum machine as well as a live drum kit makes Chris Tomson's drumming so much more interesting to listen to and adds texture and feel to the songs. The decision to bring in Ariel Rechtshaid as co-producer with band member Rotsam Batmanglij has benefited them hugely; the change has allowed Vampire Weekend to grow more as artists.

I can't sing their praises enough. This album is brilliant. They are brilliant. And if you don't think so after listening to this album, you don't deserve to own it.

Rating: 10/10

Recommended Tracks:
Unbelievers
Step
Everlasting Arms

The Family Rain

The Family Rain are yet another one of the new bands coming out of the UK that are doing it oh so very right. A group of three brothers from Bath, Ollie Walter (guitar/vocals) and twins William Walter (bass/vocals) and Timothy Walter (drums/vocals) officially formed The Family Rain in 2011, although William says they "started to play in bands together about 8 years ago, but the bands always included at least one other member as well as the three of us". This stripped back line-up, showcasing just the essentials of a rock band, really does these boys justice; the result is a raw, bluesy sound that refuses to get out of your head.

Their new single Pushing It is the perfect example of this. It starts off in a suppressed but nonetheless unapologetically heavy fashion; the grainy effects applied to the voice and instruments make it sound like a scratchy old vinyl record (which is the god-given method of playing music). Although the song stays on the same level all the way through, they maintain interest by slight variations in the music, like the guitar backing in the second verse, or the guitar solo after the chorus. As the song progresses, you get the feeling that this would be fantastic live, just because of the mood and the level of energy in the song; indeed, the band have been called a fantastic live band by many fans. The band are currently in the process of a headlining tour around the UK.

 

The band have a small yet select (and fantastic) repertoire: their new EP Pushing It recently came out, and a Youtube search brings up several live performances and previous songs that are each as brilliant as the last. They have a distinctly vintage sound, harking back to the days of The Rolling Stones or AC/DC, which sets them apart from some of the other contemporary indie rock bands. They most certainly aren't a copy-cat band, as the back-to-basics line up and driving drumbeat will tell you.

The band themselves are clearly very ambitious; in an interview with NME Ollie said that "this is not meant to be a small thing. We gave up everything to do this". It's starting to pay off, as they've recently been signed by Virgin EMI, a record label that represents the likes of Arcade Fire, Elton John and Rihanna. I have a feeling that the future is going to be bright for these lads.

Rating: 9/10

Recommended Tracks:
Carnival
Trust Me... I'm A Genius
Friction

Swim Deep

 "It's like escapism, and really good imagery. When you say "Swim Deep", you imagine good stuff, very picturesque". This is how Austin Williams of Swim Deep described the band's name, in an interview with Freshly Squeezed last year. But really, he could've been describing  the music they make and it would still be just as appropriate. To some degree, every one of their four singles has a sense of freedom and beauty, as though they were written in a daydream to which only Swim Deep are party. Their songs make you long for the days of summer, when you can forget the pressures of everyday life and just relax, behave like a complete twat, whatever. Just because you can.

I feel an urge to smile whenever I hear their latest single She Changes The Weather, a beautiful song about loving a girl to the ends of the earth. Close your eyes and pretend the song's about you, and you'll see what I mean. The low-key lyrics and understated voice allow the sincerity of the lyrics to come across, and the movement from the acoustic introduction to the full-blown ending flows so perfectly that the music carries you with it. It's in the verse, when it's stripped down to the bass, drums and voice that you really appreciate the importance of the piano riff in this song. Speaking as a pianist, I love that it's been given a "starring role", so to speak, in this song; it's not often that a piano is given much importance in an indie rock song, and I applaud them for it.

The Sea is another gorgeously uplifting song - the perfect gig closer, or encore song. It's so wonderfully optimistic and upbeat about life that it makes me want to smile at strangers, or start dancing in the middle of the street. The truth is, Swim Deep don't need to do dark, moody and introspective, because they make you think anyway, with encouraging choruses and fantastic melodies.

They also make it ok to be a little bit scruffy. Take the video for King City. They're wearing jumpers and trousers that are too big for them, they skateboard, and Zachary Robinson has pink hair. What more could you want from a band that validates your own slightly unwashed hair? Just for this, I adore them. Honey makes me love them even more. The cheeky flirting with the Honey, the paint splattered faces (and bass) and the playfulness of the lyrics - my personal favourite is "don't just dream in your sleep, it's just lazy". Wise words indeed - somehow all come together to make life ok. And that's why I love Swim Deep.

Rating: 10/10

Recommended Tracks:
Honey
King City
Orange County

David Bowie - The Next Day

This is David Bowie's first album for 10 years, after the odd experience that was Reality, released in 2003. This is a distinctive throwback to his older stuff, sounding a bit more like Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs. He's retained his distinctive voice as well, which is more than Bob Dylan can say (don't get me wrong, I love Dylan to bits, but his gorgeous voice has become marred by the incessant smoking over forty-odd years), although he no longer does the beautiful soaring falsetto, which added a touch of the Bowie drama to his music.

The not-so-impressive album cover

However, he hasn't gone completely back to his old style, but adapted it to fit into today's music scene. The brass used on Dirty Boys, as well as the muted electric guitar, reminds you of some obscure Plan B song, and the very beginning of The Stars (Are Out Tonight) is reminiscent of Kings Of Leon's Use Somebody; for all of these slight hints, Bowie moves the song on to new places that are so distinctly Bowie they couldn't be anything else.

I'm in love with Where Are We Now?, the beautifully melancholic ballad that lapses into cheeriness by pointing out all of the good things in his life ("as long as there's sun, as long as there's rain...as long as there's me, as long as there's you"). And Valentine's Day, which manages to so perfectly avoid all of the cliches surrounding love songs by dashing them all down with the lyrics "Valentine told me who's to go, feelings he treasured most of all...it's in his scrawny hands, it's in his icy heart". It completely throws you when you hear it for the first time; in a song named after the day of love, he highlights the hypocrisy of it all. Oh David, you've done it again.

The Aladdin Sane days

One criticism I do have, though, is the album artwork. Trivial, I know, but everything plays a part in your experience of an album. And I do mean everything. They've used the cover for "Heroes" and just plonked a white square in the middle of Bowie's face, with The Next Day written on it in an awful typeface. The official campaign was something to do with "everyone having their own interpretation of the album that wasn't going to be dictated by the record company, blahdy blahdy blah", but frankly, it just looks a bit cheap and as though they haven't bothered to make the effort. Not quite what you expect from King Bowie of all people.

You can listen to the full album here

Recommended tracks:
I'd Rather Be High
If You Can See Me
The Next Day

Vampire Weekend

I have no idea where these guys have gone, but I want them back. Now. They were the band du jour in the summer of 2009, a year after their self-titled first album came out. They then released Contra, their incredible second album, in 2010, and three years later, not a peep has been heard out of them since.

It's a real shame because both of these albums a) showed promise for a properly good pop band and b) had me dancing around like a loon all summer long. My absolute favourite is Oxford Comma , a song about the injustice of the class system, with a great guitar riff. Trust me to pick the deepest one as my favourite...!

Although the two albums are similar in that all the songs have a rhythm and riffs inspired by African music, they're different in their own right. When I first heard Contra, I didn't like it because it wasn't what I was expecting to hear from the people who'd made A-Punk. But really, who wants the expected? A surprise is good for us. It's now one of my favourite albums, and rightly so.

(Truth be told, they're not the most gorgeous of lads, but they make great music.)

'Til next time, folks, hope you enjoyed it! xx