Swervedriver

99th Dream (Zero Hour)
by Nik Rainey

So the name Swervedriver doesn’t ring any Quasimodal bells, eh? Not surprised – the Oxford, England quartet has had a lower Stateside profile than Billy Barty crouching during a total eclipse and label troubles that’d make George Michael chuckle derisively. But dwelling on their struggles is pointless, especially when 99th Dream, their first U.S. release in five years and the first for the fine independent philanthropists at Zero Hour, is as marvelous a technicolor pop album as one could hope for. They are the last emissaries from a stretch of ground otherwise plowed over by the monomaniacal sludge-couriers of the ’90s alt-elite: big, cracked-crystal pop songs with as many noises crammed into every corner as a Sonic Youth or a Hendrix record, but with a steady eye on maintaining the simple perfection of the landscape. You could call it psychedelic, you could call it “space-travel rock’n’roll” (as they do on the title track), but it only leaves the stratosphere as a means of hitting the ascendant, whether the purpose is to uplift or to float disconsolately in the black-velveteen expanses of heartache like a lonely planet boy (or girl).

And pop’s about the only place where the two can coexist simultaneously, so when they get a billowing cloud of distorto-dust going, leaving behind charged spores of wriggling electricity in its wake, the trace patterns are pretty well indelible. Their belated return is, as it happens, well-timed: with the dense post-prog succulence of Spiritualized and Radiohead finally making impressions on the popular consciousness and the return of bands like Curve presaging a full-blown shoegazer resurrection, Swervedriver may actually find themselves sating a growing appetite. It’s a hard-won originality and persistence that strengthens these tunes, concentrated and sustained to the point that even their seven-minute-plus songs don’t betray their length. There’s no way I can adequately impart the brilliance of this record in print (at least not this close to deadline), though they drop a cryptic clue in “These Times” when they refer to something along the lines of “a Stooges high in a Bunnymen style,” and while I can’t exactly put my finger on what that means, I’ve gotta say, double-plus right-on, gents. Get behind the wheel and leave the driving to them, never mind the seatbelts – here’s Swervedriver.