Swervedriver – I Wasn’t Born to Lose You
Some 18 years after protracted label dramas and a frosty reception to underrated fourth album 99th Dream saw Swervedriver quietly withdraw from the race, I Wasn’t Born to Lose You plays out like a promise kept from the resurgent Oxford quartet. Although the Swervies’ revival has been an understated cause since they dipped a toe back onstage at Coachella in 2008, their first recorded output since is a sure-footed return at a gentler pace.
The dense, propulsive grooves and inspired Stooges-like sax freakouts that characterised their 1993 classic Mezcal Head have been traded in for a certain lightness of touch, but like the familiar growl of an old Harley, the likes of Last Rites, Deep Wound and Red Queen Arms Race arrive with a tasteful measure of distortion.
Yet it’s the shimmering Everso that scales new heights – spacious, slower, but still very much dreamy and built for the open road (like all their best tunes), Adam Franklin’s gift for penning hypnotic, widescreen rock’n’roll keeps on giving.