Swim Deep - Hum

There’s been the sense that, ever since their earliest selves broke through with a mean trade in breezy indie anthems-in-waiting over a decade ago, that Swim Deep have constantly itched to contradict the preconceptions that followed; diving into more electronic-fuelled sounds and psychedelia to escape an innate – and enviable, no doubt – ability to pen the kind of songs that could incite both pints-in-the-air festival anthems and Tumblr aesthetic soundtracks. To awkwardly adopt a more contemporary Internet reference: a chaotic neutral. As each record saw the band shift – in both sound and members, expand their influences and experiment with an almost determined whimsy – both artist and audience seemed aware of an impending comparison to those first releases. 


It means there’s something wholly refreshing about this fifth full-length, ‘Hum’, a record which – if one were to find a time-travelling indie kid from the early 2010s and offer them the record to listen to, they’d immediately be able to place not only frontman Austin Williams’ lackadaisical, often breathy vocal, but immediately identify this as the same band they’d likely been queuing for back then. This is best found on standout ‘Mud’, where a baggy beat is met with a grungy guitar line on a track that uses its push and pull to impeccable effect, going fully in on its soaring chorus, pulling back to return with bombast moments later. ‘Photograph’ too, balances a musical familiarity and pop nous with melancholic, whirling guitars and folk leaning to create something immediately nostalgic; a still-fresh nod to the ‘60s-via-‘90s indie rush. And better yet – it’s seemingly done with full self-awareness - opener ‘Pieces Of You’ asks “How’s it go in Heaven? / How’s it go up there?”. If that’s not in reference to debut album ‘Where The Heaven Are We’, there are a lot of bucket hats to be eaten. 


In fact, bar a handful of awkward lyrical turns (see the chorus on ‘Lift Me Up’, and the “pack it up like an Eddie Stobart lorry” and “Have you tried to turn it on and off again” that stick out during ‘Is There Something Going On’ as cases in point), ‘Hum’’s only sticking point is that it could go even further. The Smiths-esque turn of the chorus on ‘In Dreams Alive’, for example, feels like it only reaches about two-thirds of its potential impact; the early-Coldplay shimmer to ‘Such A Fool’ sounds like it’s primed to fully shine if let go; and ‘The Throw’’s guitar outro hits all the points of its epic ‘90s predecessors on paper – but feels tempered, as if reluctant to embrace the bombast. 


Still, this kind of full-circle move takes guts, and ‘Hum’ is a delightful – and, pending that good ol’ British weather – timely reset pressed.