There's A Big Star Outside. Swim Deep

"How many love song died in Vegas"?, is the question Swim Deep fires at me in the first song of its new album. What a question to ask someone married for the sixth day! That aside, the song has exactly the right mood for the topic. Swim Deep sounds dreamy, melancholy and about to burst into tears.

I was about to write that the band makes its debut on this blog, but it doesn't. In 2015 I wrote a review on the band's second album, 'Mothers'. That makes nine years, so I can be excused for not having any recollection at all. There's A Big Star Outside is Swim Deep's fourth album. The band has been relatively quiet in the past nine years.

'Mother' was an album with two faces. One I liked, sort of, and one I did not at all. "80s pop", "Rick Astley", "Swim Deep skates on very thin ice", to quote a few pointers. No wonder, I forgot about the album.

So how does There's A Big Star Outside fare? The light and highish voice of Austin ‘Ozzy’ Williams is still the centre point of Swim Deep. His dreamy way of singing is what the band, bassist Cavan McCarthy, keyboardist James Balmont, guitarist Robbie Wood and drummer Thomas Fiquet, play around. The voice sets the volume of Swim Deep as well, resulting in a dreamy pop album, reminding me of U.K. bands from around 2000 that I, despite having one or two of their albums, have forgotten the name of, except Teenage Fanclub.

There's A Big Star Outside in other words is a totally different album than 'Mother'. Swim Deep has one sound, one way of playing even. Wait, there is an "Elbow" later on on the album, 'First Song'. There is a need for paying attention. Should you let your mind wonder, the album will be at the point when the guitars (finally) erupt in 'First Song', the sixth song on this album! You will have missed a few pretty songs alright. The one sound might be follow from the fact that after 'Mother' two members left. If they represented the 80s pop side, all is explained.

For There's A Big Star Outside Swim Deep asked Bill Ryder-Jones as producer and together they worked on what was to become the follow up to 2019s 'Emerald Classics'. Five years is a long time and twenty somethings have become thirty, married, have children and face adult life, including facing demons from youth that could be partied away for a while. Most of us have been there at some point.

It all results in an album that at best can be called mid tempo. There's A Big Star Outside is an album to spend time with. It doesn't make sense to listen to it in another way. Do so and you will be rewarded.

Wout de Natris - van der Borght

You can listen to and order There's A Big Star Outside here:

https://swimdeepuk.bandcamp.com/album/theres-a-big-star-outside