Equipment – First time using slang | EP Review

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Brain Synthesizer

In recent years, I’ve found myself growing tired of the increased reliance on nostalgia that seems to hold up a lot of the art being released into the world. I definitely understand the desire to move back to a more familiar time and place, particularly when we’re facing so much uncertainty and myriad anxieties, but too often it feels lazier than it does compelling. This all said, I don’t think the allure of nostalgia should be ignored entirely in the creative process, because it’s still a viable tool and, when done right, can really fucking hit. 

First time using slang, the latest EP from Ohio-based punk band Equipment covers so much ground in its quick, yet impressive thirteen minutes. “GLOVES” gets things moving with a fuzzy, heavy riff and repeating lines, “she only wears gloves inside.” Straight out of the gate, this EP feels so incredibly tight, relying mainly on instrumentation and textures to fill out this deceptively uncomplicated opener. The way the colors in the melody shift with each reprisal of the main line results in a stellar, catchy punk track that has a repeat listenability I’ve very much come to associate with Equipment after falling hard for their two most recent singles, “espresso lemonade” and “tequila redbull.”

“LAB COAT” is the track that sticks out for me the most in this collection, drawing you in with one simple guitar line that starts as a modest acoustic riff, playfully swings around to electric, then comes back in full force like a punch to the face… But like, if for some odd reason you really wanted a punch in the face. With lyrics that specifically call out “listening to bands from ‘03,” this track is a perfect example of Equipment’s ability to harness the mystical powers of nostalgia while still keeping things fresh as fuck. The vocals like warm butter in the first few seconds, the bouncy, playful rhythms, the brutally honest and relatable line “Guess I grew out of utility / I’m entitled to my mediocrity" – it all hits. Also, Rainier Beer mentioned. 

It's rare to see a band employ the use of a musical suite in an EP, let alone one of this particular genre. Seeing a 7-plus-minute song wrap up an EP in the emo and punk genres is more than welcome to my Coheed-loving-ass, and each piece of “FACIAL PROTECTION” flows like water. It’s contemplative, pensive, and over in a second if you just let it wash over you. “Ensnaring” is the word I keep wanting to come back to, because that’s precisely what these melodies, rhythms, and guitar lines are excelling at. The three movements of this final track deploy three unique approaches, but each arrive at the same spot – wrenching, melancholic mysticism. 

I’ve very much come to love the cadence that Equipment is delivering their music – releasing singles and EPs when they have the material that they know will land, and obviously having a preference for quality over quantity. From the minute I listened to this EP, particularly the standout track “LAB COAT,” I knew this release was going to be one to shine as we reflect on the releases of this year. There’s just enough familiarity to rope you in while the Quippiness™ of it all keeps you smashing that replay button. In an era where nostalgia is often used as a crutch, Equipment is using it as any other weapon in their arsenal. 

Ciara Rhiannon (she/her) is a pathological music lover writing out of a nebulous location somewhere in the Pacific Northwest within close proximity of her two cats. She consistently appears on most socials as @rhiannon_comma, and you can read more of her musical musings over at rhiannoncomma.substack.com. 

Wednesday – Bleeds | Album Review

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Dead Oceans

As a ride or die Wednesday Warrior for nigh on half a decade, the appeal of Bleeds feels entirely self-evident to me. As I’ve been spinning the countrygaze band’s sixth album throughout the summer, it was both comforting and easy to see connective tissue from all across their discography. Lead single “Elderberry Wine” is a fully-fledged country-fried love song whose sound was telegraphed by the band’s twangy Tiny Desk and Gary Stewart covers. Follow-up single “Wound Up Here (By Holding On)” assured audiences that this record wouldn’t be all sweetness and champagne bubbles, evoking the crushing desperation of 2021’s Twin Plagues between lyrics about a dead body washing up in a creek. If that song wasn’t angry enough for you, “Pick Up That Knife” is a searing (and funny) track where minor inconveniences and offhand interactions escalate to violence, bile, and self-inflicted lashings that collectively evoke 2023’s breakthrough Rat Saw God. Throughout it all, Wednesday crystallize the one-of-a-kind sound they’ve been honing since their inception, resulting in a brilliant collection of songs without parallel or compromise. 

Even if you pick up Bleeds as a complete outsider, the transportive property of the opening song and de facto title track “Reality TV Argument Bleeds” should be enough to convince you of the band’s power. Much like “Hot Rotten Grass Smell” combined sensory language, clever references, and a shit-kicking dustbowl riff to drop the listener somewhere in the wilds of North Carolina, “Reality TV” begins with a slowly mounting beat that utterly transfixes. Drums, bass, and feedback from multiple guitars all coalesce, falling in sync and growing louder until a scream erupts from bandleader Karly Hartzman, piercing through everything as the band rips into a soaring guitar riff. 

The first words we hear on the record are a gross-out glimpse of devotion as Hartzman sings, “Pickin’ the ticks off of you.” This visual, which feels like a sister lyric to a Samia song from earlier this year, is immediately undercut with a dismissive brush-off of “If you need me I’ll call you.” In the next verse, she paints a picture of being separate, observing something from one room over as she sings, “Reality TV argument bleeds / Through the floor when I go to sleep.” This speaks to the kind of observationalist approach that Hartzman takes throughout these songs, always watching, listening, and reassembling pieces of life into the music we hear on record.

As the song melts outward, we get brief snapshots into isolationist recoiling, blown engines, and some unnamed other’s “broke dick sincerity.” Ever the way with words, this first song disarms, enthralls, and reassures all at once, offering a three-minute foray into the world you’ll be inhabiting for the next 30-some-odd minutes. But not to worry, keep your hands inside the ride, and Wednesday will be more than happy to be your tour guide through the heartbreak, distortion, and sweltering southern heat. Welcome to Bleeds. 

Reckless, self-destructive behavior fueled by youthfulness, boredom, or some combination of the two has long been a cornerstone of Hartzman’s writing. Previous tracks like “Birthday Song” and “Chosen To Deserve” are clear-eyed dirtbag anthems that hinge on the universal experience of making stupid decisions throughout your youth. As the songs recount high school acid trips, pure-hearted trespassing, and innocent-enough public urination, Hartzman looks back with surprising honesty and compelling empathy. While others might think back to their teenage exploits and cringe, Wednesday codify them into song and allow others to learn from their mistakes. Hell, even if you’re not learning anything, the small-town antics enrapture like getting caught in a good conversation at the local dive bar. 

The second track on Bleeds, titled “Townies,” is the latest in this long line of diaristic entries, acting as something of a spiritual successor to “Chosen To Deserve.” Opening with a light-hearted sway that immediately clears the air, the lyrics build a backdrop of local characters eager to supply drugs, leak nudes, and generally take advantage of the women naive enough to trust them. In Hartzman’s own words, the song is about “my friend in high school who got a rumor spread about her that she gave a handjob to a guy under a desk during AP English (which she later told me was true after I told her I wrote this song).” The track thrives in the murky waters of bumbling high school sexual experiences, specifically how callous both men and women can be in that environment, pressuring you while simultaneously shaming you for your choices. 

There’s a surprising amount of sympathy extended to everyone involved, which is revealed gradually as the band peels things back layer by layer. By the end of the song, Hartzman admits, “I get it now / You were 16 and bored and drunk / And they’re just townies…” which trails off until the band brings back the seismic riff one more time, amplified tenfold, and the only catharsis or closure to be had at this point. 

Similar scenes of teenage debauchery play out on “Phish Pepsi,” a re-recording of a song off Guttering that recaptures the original’s hazy, lo-fi sound and even retains the guest feature of Owen Ashworth from Advance Base. Finding herself back in a familiar place, a carpeted floor gives Hartzman a flashback to the last time she was here in middle school and rode her bike home drunk off a Four Loko. One of the album’s best punchlines comes in the song’s final verse, where our hero recounts, “We watched a Phish concert and Human Centipede / two things I now wish I had never seen.” Each word is lovingly mirrored by Ashworth, who adds his baritone sentimentality to every syllable. The dual narrator approach brings a level of sympathetic humanity to the whole thing, as well as the sense that our narrator isn’t in this alone. 

🎄🎅Christmas Sidebar 🎁🎄

Thanks mainly to this feature from Ashworth, “Phish Pepsi” feels like a fun parallel to a cover of “Christmas Steve,” which MJ Lenderman and Karly Hartzman contributed to a compilation for Dear Life Records titled You Were Alone: An Owen Ashworth Almanac. In the original Advance Base song, Ashworth tells the (fictional) story of his cousin Steven, who took too much LSD one fateful Christmas Eve back in 1993 and is now “always kind of Christmassy.” This is far from the first holiday song to come from that project, but it is a nifty little ditty which Lenderman and Hartzman spin out into a stompy freak folk jam with charismatic ad-libs. For the Santa Heads at home, there’s also a second Christmas name-drop later on in Bleeds, making it the highest percentage of holly jolly energy in the band’s discography. 

🚫🎁Christmas Sidebar OVER 🙅‍♂️🎅

After a middle gauntlet made up of singles like “Wound Up Here” and “Elderberry Wine,” the true heart of the record lies in track seven, “The Way Love Goes.” Much like “How Can You Live” before it, this song is a plainspoken reflection of romance that’s deceptively simple but designed to throttle the life out of you. Over a solemn guitar strum, Hartzman rattles off heart-crushing lines like “Feels like I’m almost good enough / To know you” and talks about how a relationship can glacially shift from an overt or implied promise into something that feels consistently underwhelming and disappointing for both parties. Halfway through, Xandy Chelmis’ ever-reliable pedal steel emerges to accompany the confessional. After all the anger, tension, ups, and downs, the song arrives at an honest assessment of affection, with Hartzman cooing, “I know it’s not been easy / And I know it can’t always be / And that’s the way love goes.” Whew. 

On the other side of this emotional downpour, “Pick Up That Knife” is there to help pull us out of the mire. With lyrics of throwing up in a Death Grips pit and iconic one-off lines like “One day, I'll kill the bitch inside my brain,” this feels like a song tailor-made for meme pages or novelty bumper stickers. The repetitions of “They'll meet you outside” eventually give way to “Wasp,” a raging hardcore song that the band has been playing live for over a year already. Kicking off with a righteous flurry of a drum fill from Alan Miller, “Wasp” sees the band going full-tilt hardcore with Karly screaming the whole time, resulting in a cathartic outpouring of fury and indignation that rivals the outro of “Bull Believer.” 

As the album enters its final leg, “Bitter Everyday” offers one last respite before a final gut punch. Gnarly lyrics of razor blades on water slides accompany a carefree guitar riff and tequila-swilling music video depicting a day spent out on the lake – the ideal kind of summer activity when you live in a place as hot as North Carolina. As sweetly as it’s all delivered, the lyrical throughline is nothing short of harrowing, as Hartzman lays out abject depression with lines like: “Abundant things in life keep getting fewer every day.”

What’s left on the other side of that pontoon boat adventure is a four-minute slow-burning ballad depicting a “Carolina Murder Suicide” with haunting fragility. As the house burns and collapses under its own weight, our narrator reflects on the transient nature of everything. It feels like a sun setting as the embers glow into nothingness. 

But then there’s one more song. 

Closing track “Gary’s II” isn’t just a sequel to the penultimate Twin Plagues song; it’s a true story and an exuberant ode to Gary King, the beloved owner of Haw Creek, the artist commune outside of Asheville where this band (and many others) spent their nascent years collaborating and honing their sound. King was similarly memorialized all throughout Colin Miller’s Losin’, but here he is painted in a charming light with a free-wheeling country song meant to serve as a palate cleanser from the otherwise devastating lyrics strewn throughout the rest of the record. The track tells one of the most direct stories in any Wednesday song, framed by plucky pedal steel and a rickety jug band momentum. The whole thing ends with a cutesy wink and a joke so good that it feels like a spoiler to include it here, so I’ll just leave that for you to hear yourself. 

In my summer spent listening to Bleeds, I’ve been massively impressed with the shape of this record and the way everything flows. The band seems to have consciously returned to the headbobbing seesaw riffage found throughout Twin Plagues, and I’m over the moon about that. Sometimes things bend into more of a Rat Saw God storytelling direction, and elsewhere they point to a yet-untaken territory in the rocky wilds of the country music genre. 

In many ways, Bleeds feels like the purest distillation of Wednesday’s sound. They know when to build things up and when to come crashing down; when to shoot you full of adrenaline or drawl the music out for maximum impact. Throughout it all, Hartzman’s lyrics are as astute and funny and relatable as ever, offering up a fresh platter of charming idioms and painful memories that are guaranteed to be lodged in the brains of indie music fans for years to come. As the band opens a portal into their own “sicko world,” the listener feels a welcome sense of recognition, and, for 37 minutes, is lucky enough to be a small part of it, even if just as a slack-jawed onlooker. 

As someone who has spent the last two years living in North Carolina, I can attest to the region’s mystical power and otherworldly pull. My time spent there was a menagerie of soul-centering beauty, valiant people, nourishing relationships, and guiding moments. It’s a part of the country capable of precious stillness and abrupt violence. I’ll put it this way: after the years spent living in North Carolina, I can see why David Lynch decided to film Blue Velvet there. 

As Wednesday weave together a patchwork of the mundane and profane, death and love exist in a perpetual dance, coexisting in the space between the rest stops, gas stations, and kudzu. Somewhere among the Cookout signs and quarries, this group found each other and came together to capture one minuscule splitter of a life still being lived. When listeners catch a glimpse of themselves in Hartzman’s songwriting, it can feel either like a warped funhouse mirror or a comforting salve. Maybe both. Above all else, the writing throughout this band’s discography feels like an affirmation to slow down and observe. To pause and remember. To document, archive, and share – because you just might find your people in the process. I’m already the type of person who believes there’s as much beauty in the sunrise over the ocean as there is in the alley with garbage juice trickling toward the drain. The only difference is, are you willing to look for it? After you’ve built up this reservoir of emotions and memories and stories, you might find yourself feeling similarly to the beginning of this record: simmering upward until it erupts from you in a great cacophony of noise. Whatever comes next is anyone’s guess.

The Merrier – Green Mages | EP Review

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Lonely Ghost Records

Perhaps it’s because I was born on Thanksgiving Day, but something in my soul begins to really awaken during the fall. My favorite albums suit the dreary weather and shortened days, lending themselves to the innate hibernation of these months. Crunchy, fuzzy guitars, screamo vocals, and dense instrumentals are my ideal backdrop for rainy commutes and chilly weekends at home. Naturally, when Jake Stephens of The Merrier sent me the project’s new EP, Green Mages, back at the peak of summer, I knew it was perfect for autumn even then. When we were chatting about the release, I mentioned this to Jake, who was in agreement and excited that I had picked up on this. 

Bridging the genres of dreamo, chiptune, bedroom pop, and electronica, The Merrier is known for his immersively warm music and stellar collaborations. And when I say ‘collaborations,’ I mean it: practically every Merrier song features vocals from another artist, usually from within the online DIY sphere. His release If We Fall Asleep Too Early was one of my favorites of 2023, featuring underground heroes like exciting!!excellent!! and Equipment. One year later, Jake released an album titled i hope i'm with my cats when the flood comes, which was the project’s first full-length release. Genre boundaries are pushed throughout the album, verging into neo-soul on “iso,” flirting with hyperpop on “the mid outdoors,” and even offering a couple of the project’s first fully solo songs without accompanying features. This constant experimentation and expansion continues onto Green Mages – Jake is compelling, fresh, and innovative as ever, acting as architect and mastermind as he constructs seven brilliant songs.

The EP opens with a blast of chiptune notes on “jester,” a charming and upbeat track featuring fellow Cleveland rock band Mud Whale. It’s dotted with cozy electronic sound effects that make you feel like the main character in a video game. I love a rowdy album opener, and “jester” pulls you in with raucous vocals like “Get on your feet and dance with me!” and “TWERK UPSIDE DOWN ON THE WALL!” Even though I can’t do any of that on my daily commute, it’s deeply cathartic to scream those lyrics while I wither away at yet another red light. As chaotically as “jester” begins, it immediately ends and transitions into the groovy track “timing,” featuring neo kiio. “timing” is a little more mellow, and I feel my shoulders relax as the beat dances through my ears. This is a delicious amalgam of genres: screamo melds effortlessly with hyperpop and hip-hop influences, decorated with Jake’s guitar lines that spin like sugar around the track’s core.

When I was little, my family would regularly take our Land Cruiser up to the high country of the Sierra Nevadas. As we wound up incline after incline, I used to close my eyes and watch the muted colors of the autumn sunlight dance across my eyelids. It was just us five up there, golden aspens whispering to each other as we explored the deep forests and quiet lakes hidden above the tree line. Listening to the second half of Green Mages reminds me of these days: “we saw it!” featuring Gabbo is soft and tender. Cascading melodies and sumptuous reverb surround the listener like a fleece pullover, cozy and warm. If only music were a time machine – I’d give anything to transport myself back to one of those adventures, just for an hour. Even so, I suppose “we saw it!” brings me as close as it gets to time travel without atomic reassembly. The energy of Green Mages amps back up with the closing track “eclipse!,” featuring Midwest emo stalwarts Short Fictions. This is a song for blasting out your car windows as dusk wraps the horizon. Brash and raucous, “eclipse!” makes me feel brave: proof that sometimes medicine comes in the form of a good emo song. 

The wizardry of The Merrier is proven on every magical track of Green Mages. Creativity and innovation are woven through the entire EP: Jake’s emotive writing is complemented brilliantly by each guest he brings on board, no matter their niche. And as the days get darker and colder at last, Green Mages is autumn’s welcome herald.

Britta Joseph is a musician and artist who, when she isn’t listening to records or deep-diving emo archives on the internet, enjoys writing poetry, reading existential literature, and a good iced matcha. You can find her on Instagram @brittajoes.

Embracing The Chaos: An Interview With Laveda

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Photo by Mars Alba

New York City is known as “The City of Dreams” for the hundreds of thousands that relocate there every year with grand aspirations in an even grander city. New York itself has enough main character energy for a whole coastline, making it the ideal setting for an artist. From the hustle and bustle of the people on the streets to the blinding glow of a subway car and the peeled-off paint of a tenement building, inspiration is abundant at all hours of the day. Falling in love with NYC is as easy as acquiring a late-night slice at Joe’s Pizza.

​Enter Laveda, a noisy rock band fronted by Ali Genevich (guitar, bass, synths, vocals) and Jacob Brooks (guitar, bass, synths, vocals). What started out as a project between the two of them in the winter of 2018 evolved into something bigger as they realized the momentum was building. In 2022, with hopes to solidify their sound, Laveda enlisted Dan Carr (bass, guitar) and Joe Taurone (drums) for assistance on their sophomore effort. The resulting album, A Place You Grew Up In, was full of lush, warm soundscapes which felt like an ode to their upstate New York, Albany roots.

The following year, Genevich and Brooks made the jump to migrate a couple of hours south to New York City. The ceaseless energy of their new home inspired their third studio record, Love, Darla. The two were influenced to create new music by the things they would hear on the streets: the clattering of subway cars, screeching of metal on construction sites, and distant sirens. There was never a dull moment in their world or their music.

The songs on Love, Darla have a scrappy chaos within them. The introductory “Care” starts with just a minute of guitar reverb that sounds like grinding metal, then morphs into a dissonant, energetic banger. “Cellphone” has a gentle, melodic, head-bobbing slacker rock appeal with rebellious kiss-off lyrics. The songs come with a real bite to them, but also have a melodic flow that makes them rewarding to revisit, just like Sonic Youth and countless New York bands of yore. Laveda is now about constant movement. Gone is the quiet, suburban life of northeast New York; in its place is the eruptive energy of the city that never sleeps.

I sat down with Ali Genevich and Jacob Brooks via Zoom to talk about moving to the city, getting inspired by live music, and Tim Burton. 

Photo by Mars Alba

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

SWIM: I read that you moved from Albany to New York City in 2023. What inspired that move?

ALI: We had wanted to move to New York for a while, the timing just wasn’t right for us with COVID. Once things were opening back up again, we started doing a lot of gigging and touring. I feel like we were busy in the local scene, just trying to build up our presence as a band upstate. Eventually, I think we reached a point where it felt like we had sort of outgrown the scene there and wanted to surround ourselves with more like-minded musicians and a new community. The scene sort of died out with COVID and my college shutting down. Unfortunately, it took a big hit. Not to say we wanted to abandon it, but we also had always wanted to come to New York, so the timing just felt right when we made the move in 2023.

SWIM: Were you able to adapt quickly to New York City, or did it take some time to settle in?

ALI: I think it was a little of both. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of people we already knew when we first got here, so in some ways, it was easier for us to move here than a different city. If we were to move to somewhere that we’ve never been, like Texas, we just don’t know people in those cities, but we had a lot of friends who already lived in New York City, so it was really nice. It was just cool to have people to hang out with, bring you out to things, and show you the cool venues and bars and all that jazz.

SWIM: Is there a difference between creating music in Albany as opposed to New York? Can you feel a difference?

ALI: Yeah, definitely. I’m very inspired by my environment, and New York is a lot different than Albany or Troy, just much more industrial, and there’s so much more noise and energy, and people are surprising you every day. There’s always an interaction that you don’t expect you’re going to have, and it’s really awesome. I think Albany and Upstate are just so much slower-paced, and sometimes you can go about your day without really even talking to anyone at all. That’s interesting to me. I think a lot of the griminess of New York City has found its way into our music for sure, into this new record. It definitely contributed a lot to a sonic shift that was already happening in our sound – New York kind of drove the nail further into the coffin, I guess.

SWIM: I hear that griminess in “I Wish” and “Care,” and it reminds me of mid-to-late ‘80s Sonic Youth. Were they like an inspiration for you? What’s your relationship with them?

ALI: Yeah, I’ve always loved Sonic Youth, but I think I found a new appreciation for their music when we moved here because I just read Kim Gordon’s book, Girl in a Band. I picked it up at Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon, and I started reading it on tour. It was super relatable, and I was like, ‘Well this would be a good time to dive deeper into Sonic Youth’s music after we moved here,’ because I had just finished the book at that time. 

It took me, like, two years to read it because I put books down constantly and pick them back up again. But yeah, then I started listening to their first record, second record, third record, all that, just from the beginning, because Kim had referenced so many different eras in her life, you know? I wanted to have a better idea of what she was talking about, so I just got really into it and eventually was like, wait, these records are some of the best records. I’d only heard some of their more popular stuff, and now some of the random deeper cuts are some of my favorite tracks. They’re an incredible band.

SWIM: Do you have a favorite album from Sonic Youth? 

ALI: I think Sister is probably my favorite.

SWIM: Sister, that’s a good one. I love that album cover.

ALI: Yeah, it’s just, it’s got such a mood, and I’m a sucker for just feeling nostalgic all the time. It really does evoke that emotion in me. But they have a lot of great records. I mean, honestly, what am I forgetting? Goo, that’s it! I feel like that’s a more popular record, but also pretty undeniably awesome. 

SWIM: I read that you guys workshoped “Strawberry” and “Heaven” during live shows. I think that’s really cool. It reminds me of a comedian going to a club just to see what jokes work, trying to add them into their set. How did you decide to workshop these songs together at live shows?

JACOB: At the time, those were our only two new ones, really. I think we had started “Heaven” first. We also had “Tim Burton’s Tower” in our back pocket and “Cellphone” as well, but we weren’t really ready to flesh those out yet.

ALI: Yeah, I think we knew that those songs were too challenging. We just didn’t know what they were gonna sound like yet. We felt “Strawberry” and “Heaven” were just strong. They had really solid foundations, so it made sense to take those out, play them, and just sort of see how they evolved. 

I don’t think the songs fundamentally changed a lot, but it was more the energy that we had when we played them and the little nuances. Things like figuring out what pedals sound good for a certain section of the song and what buzz tone I wanted. For Joe, I feel like the drum part really solidified itself over the course of a month. He would try some new fills here and there just to experiment because we had the time to. I sang the song completely differently in the demo than I ended up singing it on the record. The end result is completely different. If you heard the demo, you’d be like, ‘Oh, wow, this is a very different voice and character.’ I think that also inspired a lot of the other songs and the singing on the rest of the record. Finding the right style of singing wasn’t challenging, but it definitely took some time to figure out.

SWIM: Did you notice a crowd reaction to a certain part of the song, like ‘oh, they seemed to be drawn to this, so maybe we should add this into the song’ or something like that?

ALI: Well, yeah, I feel “Strawberry” was really the Catalyst because people just liked the song in general, but they would always say ‘Oh, I really like when you scream’ and enough people said it to where I was like, ‘maybe I should just do that more.’ And because I like when I scream, I was like, great, you like it, I like it, sounds good, let’s just put it all over the place.

SWIM: You guys mentioned the song “Tim Burton’s Tower” earlier. I love his movies – is he an inspiration? Did you draw anything from him for the song title?

JACOB: I think it’s more of a Troy, New York thing.

ALI: Yeah, the lyrics of the song are loosely about someone who just wants to be a movie star, but the song was inspired by this old church that we could see from our apartment in Troy. It had this scary-looking tower, and we would always just call it the Tim Burton Tower. Troy has a lot of really old Gothic architecture and historical buildings from the 1800s, which is really cool. But yeah, and it’s the oldest song on the record, or at least the oldest idea. We were still living upstate when I wrote that, and I think it just stuck. I thought, 'Oh, since it’s a song called Tim Burton’s Tower, I’ll just make it about the movies.'

SWIM: Do you have any favorite Tim Burton movies? 

ALI: Well, we definitely love The Nightmare Before Christmas. I think Edward Scissorhands specifically was what I was picturing while we were writing that song. We actually had a VHS of Edward Scissorhands on in the background in LA while we were recording the song. That scene where he’s cutting the shrubs with his hand, it’s just, like, so crazy.

SWIM: Have you ever seen the movie Sleepy Hollow? Was that in Upstate New York, or am I imagining that? 

JACOB: No, you’re not imagining, there is. I saw it once. It’s good. It’s a crazy movie.

Photo by Julia Tarantino

SWIM: Was there a live band you all saw that was so good that it sparked a competitive fire for you to want to go practice harder and get better as musicians?

ALI: Oh, that’s a really cool question. Yes, I mean, I feel like I have two answers for this. 

I think maybe not in a competitive way, but more just in an inspirational way. We were on our way to record A Place You Grew Up In, out in California, so the whole band was driving across the country with our gear, and my aunt and uncle live just outside of Denver, so we crashed a couple of nights with them on our way to LA. It just so happened that Wilco was playing at Red Rocks, so we went to that. I was like, okay, we have to go to this, and the tickets were like 50 bucks a pop, so no brainer, let’s go. We just had the most amazing time, and we had never gone to a show just the four of us together, so that was really special. Wilco is just an incredible band, and Dan, our bass player, has always been a really big Wilco fan. After that show, I think we were all just like, 'Oh my God, wow, what a crazy, awesome experience.'

Another sort of band that I feel like really ticks this box is Robber Robber from Burlington, Vermont. They’re an amazing band, really sweet people, and friends of ours. We’ve played a show or two with them, but they’re an incredible live band. I remember Joe, after he saw Zack (from Robber Robber) play the drums for the first time, he literally went home and was like, ‘I need to practice more.’ Joe is already such an incredible drummer, so when he says something like that, you know he’s gotta be mind-blown. It was really cool to see how inspired he was by Zack’s playing, and we all love that band. They’re awesome. They put on a sick live show, so you should check them out if you haven’t.

SWIM: For me, music is a lot about scenery and vibes. If you listen to the right album at the right time, it can enhance your experience. Is there an ideal setting you would love for people to listen to your new album so that it might enhance their listening experience?

JACOB: I think it’s a subway record.

ALI: Yeah, I definitely think listening on the subway is really cool because the subway is kind of chaotic sometimes, but especially the above-ground trains, where you can see outside and you can just see everything moving fast and all these random people in the train car that are just on their daily commute or whatever. I do enjoy listening to it then. I think we've both said it can be really noisy when you’re listening with earpods, and you can still hear the sounds of the train and people and whatever else is going on.. It’s almost like the music blends in because it’s grimy and noisy already; it sort of just incorporates those sounds, so it’s like it doesn’t really matter if you have bleed from the outside world. But yeah, I haven’t really found a place that’s beat that experience for me with this record yet. 

JACOB: I think our previous records were made more for the car because we were upstate. Now we never drive.

ALI: Yeah, I don’t know if this is a car album.

JACOB: I don’t think it is.

SWIM: The album is so chaotic and up-tempo and has so much energy. It feels like it’s built for body movement: either you’re walking, you’re running, or you’re on the subway. I think that’s perfect for your guys’ record.

ALI: Yeah, yeah, walking is nice. Walking in any city, I think, would also be pretty nice. Just point A to point B type stuff.

SWIM: Thanks so much for taking the time! See you on tour soon.

ALI: Thank you. Have a great rest of your day.

David is a content mercenary based in Chicago. He’s also a freelance writer specializing in music, movies, and culture. His hidden talents are his mid-range jump shot and the ability to always be able to tell when someone is uncomfortable at a party. You can find him scrolling away on Instagram @davidmwill89, Twitter @Cobretti24, or Medium @davidmwms.

Shallowater – God's Gonna Give You A Million Dollars | Album Review

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Thinking about West Texas roots up a string of memories in my mind. One of my earliest was a big family camping trip where my friend’s dad showed us just about every constellation in the sky. He grew up in Dumas and spent countless nights looking at the stars when he was a kid because there wasn't much else to do. For a while, I was going to college in Colorado and making the cross-Texas drive more often than I probably should have. I got to know West Texas by the pit stops along the route and by how much the speed limit decreased from town to town. I eventually transferred to a school in Texas and made friends who had grown up on the left side of the state. One time, we went on a camping trip and stopped in Andrews to pick up some gear from one of their childhood homes. We couldn't use the front door because it was blocked by too many tumbleweeds.

The tumbleweeds blocking my friend’s front door in Andrews, TX.

Shallowater is a three-piece dirtgaze band from West Texas, currently living in Houston. Blake Skipper, Ryan Faulkenberry, and Tristan Kelly made one of the best albums of 2024 with their debut There Is A Well, and I was an immediate fan on first listen. I am an absolute sucker for a band from Texas and feel deeply connected to anyone who grew up there. This thinking may have some validity anywhere other than Texas, where the immense landmass allows for vast differences in culture and experience across the state. There Is A Well is absolutely gorgeous, a beautiful first articulation of the group’s dust-coated take on shoegaze that they’ve built upon elegantly and precisely with their follow-up. As you venture into Shallowater’s sophomore album, God’s Gonna Give You A Million Dollars, it feels as if the band figured out how to inject the entirety of the Texas Panhandle directly into their songs. 

Produced by Alex Farrar, God’s Gonna Give You A Million Dollars is a smattering of multifaceted epics written from “me” to “you,” showcasing all sides of Shallowater’s sound. This album further solidifies the trio as one of the defining sounds of the modern Texas Panhandle. The album trudges through dust storms, tiptoes across the squeaky floorboards of a shotgun house, and blasts down a pitch-black highway with the windows down. 

The first two songs, “God’s Gonna Give You A Million Dollars” and “Sadie,” seem to tell the same narrative of an experience with grief after the loss of a grandmother. I imagine the grandma being one to poke fun at her own eventual passing, perhaps with the peace of knowing that what was on the other side would be unimaginably better than that of Earth. She would say that when she dies and goes to heaven, God would give her a million dollars and that all her old friends would be there too. The album opens with Grandma having their million dollars and a handful of roses. The rest of the song captures fond memories and personal quirks, ending at a cemetery on New Year's Eve. In “Sadie,” we see some of the ways one processes their grief. 

I’ve been writing down
Every word
You said to me
Cause I like the way they look
Bad year for me
And the roses
So I hung
Them up
Like a trophy kill

Nestled midway through the album, we’re out of the house and on the road, taking in the southern part of the country the way that so many experience it: through the window of a car. “Highway” is the best country western song I have heard in quite some time. Reading through the lyrics, I can practically hear George Jones crooning the words over a steady strumming guitar. At the beginning of the song, the line “Back where I was just / lights on a highway to you” devastates as the lyrics articulate that feeling of finding out you weren’t anything to them but another passing car in the night. As the song nears its end, the lyrics are whittled down to only the last six words – this solitary phrase repeating and feeling like a promise or a hope for future trips to that same lost love. While Blake Skipper sings with more of a casual air than Mr. Jones does, he finds the perfect cadence and tone to bring the country western feel out from the yearning lyrics into the song. 

We’ve all seen the decrepit house off the highway while cruising along the desolate part of our multi-hour drive. It looks like an island breaching up out of the water, usually surrounded by trees that have grown up taller than what is left of the ruins. It takes a split second to drive by, but years of life have been lived out in that frame. This is the song “All My Love,” except here we have gotten out of the car and are looking through the remains with our adventurous little nephew. It doesn't take long for the detour to turn personal and existential. Nothing is just one thing in this album. We hear a creak come from the framing of the old house, and suddenly we are freshly regretting the unrequited love of years past. Their evocative lyrics remove any chance of gleaning personal information while allowing the beauty of human experience to remain. Every word stretches until it meets the start of the next. It's a long drawl that sounds special on top of the ever-shifting sonic landscape.

Throughout the record, Shallowater exercise a level of skill and restraint that feels increasingly rare to find in “-gaze” bands. These three aren’t just defaulting to a simplistic loud-quiet-loud structure, nor are they pummeling wannabe Deftones riffs through hundreds of dollars of effects pedals. Instead, Shallowater uses these longer song structures to their advantage, exploring the softer side of their sound and executing these changes in sound with careful intention. Sometimes things are rolling along in peaceful post-rock lilt, then suddenly a squall of guitar feedback will rear up and rip you away from the calm. Though it’s more bite-sized in comparison, it’s most reminiscent of another southern rock behemoth: The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads. All of this lends to a sense of vision and atmosphere with seven- to nine-minute songs that hold my attention all the way through, either through beauty or force. Equally skilled at filling the track with huge, crushing sound as they are at finding perfect moments for silence. It’s worldbuilding at its finest, and Shallowater’s world is vast, deep, and dusty. 

West Texas is a place where being a cowboy is still a real profession. A place where, when the wind blows just right, and it often does, the air fills with the scent of cow manure from the several million head of cattle that are being raised nearby. Shallowater is a band born from that harsh beauty, and with God’s Gonna Give You A Million Dollars, they consistently and uniquely serve up the Panhandle on a silver platter for any and all to partake.

Kirby Kluth grew up in the suburbs of Houston but now lives in Knoxville, TN. He spends his time thinking about motorcycles, tennis, and music. You can follow him on Instagram @kirbykluth.