EP Review: Swervedriver - The World's Fair
Reviewed by Rob Barker
Like possibly a few other readers, the classic 1995 PlayStation 1 Road Rash came out and introduced me to a world of music that wasn’t East 17 or my mum’s Phil Collins’ tapes. I’ve, on occasion, thought about how a band that featured on this game would react to me saying that this is the reason I listened to them in the first place and always hope it wouldn’t be snubbed, because, technically speaking, it resulted in Swervedriver being amongst one of the first ever rock bands I got into as a kid. Tracks Duel and Last Train to Satansville are still on just about every alternative playlist I make even now, and whilst they’ve come and gone as an active band, with sometimes more than a decade between releases, they’ve stayed well in my own personal rock hall-of-fame purely because of the memories that go with listening to them. But now that I’ve fanboyed a little bit, and am at the risk of unlocking repressed memories, let’s take a look at their new EP The World’s Fair.
Starting off with Pack Yr Vision and getting straight in with some lovely clean guitar picking, not giving long before vocals kick in and getting down to business starts fairly quickly. The shoegaze fuzz enters over time, complimenting the aforementioned picking nicely and providing a bright heaviness. The fuzzy guitar tone reminded me slightly of the tone that Earth may have used on The Bees… album. Moving on next to Volume Control, and again, no messing around with getting straight on and into things. Very pleasant vocal harmonies, and even more pleasantly disturbing, ever-so-slight discordance going on through the otherwise pitch-perfect everything else – like a much less obvious version of THAT vocal trick in the verses of Deftones’ Minerva. A refreshing piano bridge brings a post-rock atmosphere that occasionally pokes its head up throughout the 4-track, along with gorgeous every now and then to surprise us; my personal pick as favourite from the EP.
More piano-laced heaviness with the title track, reminiscent again of a more post-rock feel with bands such as Nordic Giants. A carnival of post-rock dream noise. The finale, Time Attack shows off a powerful chorus hook, heavily indulging in the more dream-pop area of the band’s bag of tricks, and presenting a cool way to end the EP in almost sing-along fashion.
The tracks are certainly shorter than the Swervedriver I remember from when I was in single digits, but not to their detriment; in fact, having cut out the at-times rambling outros of old, the more conformist length of the songs adds a bit more emphasis to their power. Undoubtedly the sound of the band has changed from the early 90’s band that eight-year-old me fell in love with, but that was nearly 30 years ago and honestly if it hadn’t have changed since then I’d be having more issue than not. Whilst The World’s Fair is more conventional in some respects than perhaps some other examples from the band’s back catalogue, this is not to be frowned upon. An accessible, friendly way into shoegaze for the uninitiated, and a refreshing breath of positivity and major-key for the jaded and bored.
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