Swim Deep’s evolution has been fascinating to watch. Since forming in 2011, the British indie band have zigged and zagged through different shades of alternative music, taking in everything from the dreamy indie-pop of 2013 debut ‘Where The Heaven Are We’ and the synth-led psych wigout of follow-up ‘Mothers’, to third album ‘Emerald Classics’’ ‘90s dance-pop leaning sounds. Another left turn landed in 2024, with ‘There’s A Big Star Outside’ – rich, warm, introspective alt-rock that twinkled and swelled.
Two years on from that last record, Swim Deep – frontman Austin “Ozzy” Williams, keyboardist James Balmont, bassist Cavan McCarthy, guitarist JJ Buchanan and drummer Thomas Fiquet – are breaking the habit of a lifetime. Instead of bounding on to the next sonic frontier, on ‘Hum’ they’ve reunited with producer Bill Ryder-Jones, who helmed ‘…Big Star…’, and buried themselves deeper in the sounds of that album.
‘Mud’ shimmers and shudders into life every time its grungy, anthemic chorus hits, while ‘In Dreams Alive’ dances through jangly indie melodies that are instantly irresistible. ‘I Keep Her Photograph With Me’ lurches along sepia-toned synth lines, its nostalgic atmosphere matching its lyrics. Each time, the results are beautiful, adding up to undoubtedly the most poignant album in their unpredictable adventure so far.
Lyrically, too, ‘Hum’ is a continuation of its predecessor, picking up where that record left off in the personal stories from Williams’ life. Where we last heard him preparing for impending fatherhood, he marvels at the existence of his daughter on ‘You, Me & Mary’, telling her in one beautiful, awe-stricken moment, “I won’t ever get used to you, my baby, my friend”. That sense of family – what it means to guide a child through life, the bonds we build with those we choose to go through life with, the loss of the generations before us – drives this album forward, each song full of gratitude and grace.
On the heady alt-rock of ‘Pieces Of You’, Williams contends with mortality, asking a recently departed family member what lies on the other side. “Do you walk into a place where time and space takes a break from it all?” he muses over a sparkling, soaring tapestry. Album closer ‘Lift Me Up’, a stripped-back acoustic track, continues the songwriter’s knack for breaking relationships down into simple but effective stories, littering the lyrics with references to experiences he’s shared with his wife. There are only a few moments here that pull you out of the moving world the band build here, not least ‘Is There Something Going On?’’s jarring lyric about packing “it up like an Eddie Stobart truck”.
For the first time, Williams isn’t the only primary songwriter in Swim Deep. Buchanan, the latest addition to the band’s lineup – itself something that’s undergone evolution – contributes two songs here: ‘Broken’ and the aforementioned ‘I Keep Her Photograph With Me’. Both are stunning and full of emotional heft, but particularly ‘Broken’, which quietly builds as it navigates finding your way out of a dark spot and reaches its end with a devastating request: “Come and find me in the next life / When I’m not so broken”.
In the lead-up to ‘Hum’’s release, Williams has referenced the idea that, when Swim Deep first formed back in 2011, they didn’t think they’d make it to a fifth album. As a band that haven’t always got the recognition they should have, it’s impressive that they’ve stuck around – particularly in an industry as harsh and fickle as music. More than that, though, it’s the great fortune of anyone who turns on this album that they’ve kept going, kept honouring their talents, and recorded some of their most beautiful songs yet.
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