Swim Good: Swim Good (S/T)

Artist: Swim Good
Title: Swim Good (S/T)
Format Reviewed: MP3
Format Released: 1st April 2014
Reviewed By: Quinn

You'll be forgiven for having not heard of Swim Good. Their début EP was only released in April of this year, and if you Google search 'Swim Good’ all but one result towards the bottom of the page is for Frank Ocean's song of the same name. They also seem to have had very little to do with the punk scene since their inception, with the exception of a rather disastrous pop-punk night near London's Kings Cross in January 2013, which is where I first saw them. I haven't heard of them again until I was asked to review their EP.

This self-titled release hosts six tracks that you could very easily mistake as demo recordings for Panic! at the Disco's 2005 album A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out.  Each track carries the signature passionate and poetic vocals, backed up by a pop-punk, swing infused melody, but misses out on originality by nearly a decade. There are times when it feels as though the band are trying to buck their own trend and build into something more progressive, but the moment those chords build to the natural crescendo where the song should become interesting they retreat back to the trenches to stand guard and polish their boots.

I'm finding it tough to say anything about these tracks individually. Every three minutes it feels like you jump back to the beginning of the song, especially between tracks 5 and 6 where Great, Great, Yeah, Great starts dangerously similar to the way Listen Well ends. This could have worked had their producer encouraged them to roll the songs into one another instead of having a very definite end and start to the two.

The only track that really stands out for me is their single Hatchet (a video of which can be found on YouTube) which is the only song on the record that, to my ears, has a hook. To give them their dues, despite being the most Panic!-like song on the release, it is also the one song that is done the most well and I could fully imagine a crowd jumping around to the track's powerful intro before breaking into a finger clicking swing when the chorus kicks in. It's the last 60 seconds of the song that will do the band the most favours in the long run though. I've only listened through this EP a handful of times yet I find myself singing the uber- catchy and repetitive "that's for me to know and you to find out" that takes us through to the song's outro.

It is these hooks that the EP is so desperately missing the most. Had they been able to write a few more catchy lyrics or guitar lines the EP might warrant a few repeat listenings allowing it to steadily grow on you. Unfortunately it is only Hatchet that has achieved anything close to this and I have a feeling it works much better live than it does on record.

On the whole the band, and this EP, is good at what it does. They clearly know what they set out to achieve and this release, although rough around the edges, could be the stepping stone that evolves them into a band that is more refreshing to listen to whilst feeding to our nostalgia of a time when music was going through a funky phase of trying out different things. As it stands the EP is good, but it is bland.  It's like a cheap hotel, there are no thrills and you know exactly what to expect.