Californian four-piece SWMRS have come a long way since their Emily’s Army days, a venture that saw them don matching outfits for a somewhat kitsch appearance at Reading and Leeds Festival a few years back. ‘Drive North’, their debut full-length in their latest incarnation, is a new beast. The surf-pop on which Emily’s Army was formed remains, but it’s a much grittier affair. From now wearing matching suits would be playful irony rather than a superficial gimmick.
The sound is more mature, but it marries this with an adolescent recklessness. It’s unsurprising from a band who led their album campaign with an ode to Miley Cyrus, one of the record’s many highlights. ‘Miss Yer Kiss’ and ‘Ruining My Pretending’ are brilliantly weird. Producer Zac Carper of FIDLAR has clearly had his fingers in SWMRS sound-pie, but it stops just short of being as dark as last year’s ‘II’. Instead, SWMRS are mischievous.
The fun elements are never compromised. ‘Drive North’ is a party soundtrack, a representation of a hectic Californian summer. There’s no relaxing as SWMRS draw you into their world and take you along for the ride. It’s balanced perfectly, switching in style just as the bratty style hints at being overbearing. Subtlety isn’t even close to being the name of the game.
On ‘Hannah’, another disarmingly peculiar track, SWMRS spell it out, referring to themselves as crazy, “coo coo, bananas.” “Don’t you want to love me at all?” the band ask. As ‘Drive North’ reaches its spitting title-track climax (the record finishes with a literal “fuck you”), we’ve fallen head over heels. The record is unapologetically frantic, brash and downright weird. Their garage-punk sound pulls it all together perfectly, delivering an accompaniment to one of the weirdest, most exhilarating trips of your life.
BEN TIPPLE