Album Review

Swervedriver will forever be a band without classification. Many try to lump them together with My Bloody Valentine and the early 90’s shoegazer movement, but their songs are simply too rocking to oblige. They are too spacey to be a plain old rock band, but a bit too traditional to fall in line with the likes of Sonic Youth or Pavement. The one band that I will always consider a close fit is early Smashing Pumpkins. If anything, Swervedriver’s layered and effects-drenched guitars were the British counterpart of the fuzzed out wall of sound that Billy Corgan rode to fame via Chicago. I will always look at Swervedriver as if they were the version of Smashing Pumpkins that never broke it big time. The songs were there, the guitars were downright soaring, but for some reason the general public never bit.

So it isn’t surprising that my first exposure to the band was via a snowboard video as opposed to commercial radio. And what a perfect fit that was! If there is one feel that this band seems to capture it is movement. Whether you were running down a trail, driving down a desolate moonlit highway, or navigating the icy walls of a 12 foot half-pipe, Swervedriver provides a killer soundtrack. They brought the sounds of space down to Earth, and they did so in a fashion which would lead one to believe that the aliens were as into The Stooges and Dinosaur Jr. as they were ray-guns and teleportation devices.

Coincidentally, if you ever find yourself in the cockpit of the Space Shuttle awaiting lift-off, make sure to hit play on this album’s opening track, “Sci-Flyer,” just as the jets ignite. I will go to my grave (as of this writing at least) stating that “Sci-Flyer” is the greatest opening track on any album. The reason for this being that the introduction to the debut, and hence the band for most people, perfectly sums up Swervedriver’s career in five minutes and 13 seconds of raging, spaced-out glory. Once you listen to this song you immediately know what the band is all about. They are rocking, they are psychedelic, they are pop, and they are downright deadly when it comes to effects-pedal abuse!

Listen to “Sci-Flyer”

And while the follow-up to Raise, Mezcal Head (which is being re-issued this month as well,) is probably more consistent, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the debut. It finds the band balancing all of their creative tendencies – dreamy atmospherics, heavy riff-rock, hypnotic bass lines, vocals from outer space – more evenly than on any of the future releases. Mezcal Head is fantastic (and often considered their best), but it’s much more of a rock album, lacking the dreamy aura that Raise so deftly elicits. The final two records, Ejector Seat Reservation (which was never released in the US,) and 99th Dream both veer much more into the pop world and find the band tempering the more psychedlic and spacey tendencies.

So even though Raise does contain a couple of filler tracks, it’s meat far outweighs its fat. Namely the aforementioned opening track, and a handful of singles so damn pristine it’s amazing to think they all popped up on the same disc. “Son Of Mustang Ford” is a driving song (both literally and figuratively) for the ages, which shows the band at their rocking peak on this disc. It’s like listening to the punk rockers who just discovered a closet full of phaser pedals. “Sandblasted” rides about a minute of jangle before launching into it’s classic “How does it feel to feel?” vocal, paving the way for a song of true beauty – think Dinosaur Jr. meets Pink Floyd. But the true victor of Raise is the almighty “Rave Down,” a song soperfect that words will do it no justice. Just buy the record and listen to the greatest 90’s anthem which never was.

Listen to “Son Of Mustang Ford”
Listen to “Sandblasted”
Listen to “Rave Down”

This re-issue adds four bonus tracks, the legendary (amongst Swervedriver fans at least) “Kill The Superheros” being the pick of the litter. The three others are pretty cool as well, but pale in comparison to the album’s strongest cuts. In short, they were good choices to leave on the cutting room floor. For 90% of the other bands in the early 90’s they would have easily become A-list material, but for these guys they would prove only worthy of bonus tracks. As Raise illustrates, in the world of rock and roll the cream does not rise to the top nearly as often as it should.

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