© Liv Niles

Swervedriver

Scala

‘Shoegaze,’ was an industry in-joke. One that made Swervedriver’s career trajectory rather atypical. Cut by the hardy brambles of their peers, the belated Creation Records outlanders had to combat against the bias monopolisation of the early 90s UK music press. Performing in the shadows of Oxford’s recently reformed Ride, the band were vehemently paralleled to their era’s contemporaries. Yet their international success was prompt and brash. Their commerciality appealed instantly to the US; soused in the waves of Seattle grunge and scouting for the next Andy Bell. Yet Swervedriver were opposed to the niche they had been advertised as. Swervedriver were never the doyens of shoegaze but the British answer to America’s swell of alternative rock.

Misrepresentation aside, the band seemed crippled by the A&R attention alongside lukewarm critical acclaim. So they dissipated. Successful but never succeeding the typecast handed to them. Today, they can arguably be regarded as one of the UK’s most absent triumphs. And as the now reformed group play at London’s Scala to push their first album in 17 years, I Wasn’t Born to Lose You, the room feels bloated by a sense of guilt for neglecting Swervedriver’s clout first time around. 

The set begins with Autodidact; its dosage of dreamy discord drips with a wistful remembrance of Jim Hartridge’s impeccable guitar tones. Adam Franklin’s husked vocal timbre somehow slits through the dissonance with the baritoned weight of experience to project him. It’s the sort of controlled turmoil to give you tinnitus. Equally sleazy as it is sensory. 

And despite remaining in the realms of I Wasn’t Born to Lose You – flitting from For a Day Like Tomorrow to Last Rites, and the record’s single release, Setting Sun – there is something wholly anthological about tonight. As the chorus pedal pushing whirs out a hazardously distorted fuzz, it’s the Mezcal Head cuts that see everything reach some sort of peak. Swervedriver look so comfortable. It’s a homecoming from a home that originally broke them. Duel completes the set. The song that epitomised their cumbersome commercial ascendency back in ’93. 

People are unsurprisingly tear-jerked. The band are unsurprisingly gratified. And as the fumbling for exits begin, the sense of remorse returns. Swervedriver play with the washed out fervency of an US-alt act akin to Sonic Youth or Wipers. A British-group born in the wrong country. A trans-continental band that found solace Stateside while we wiped our noses over Creation’s Rec’s cash cows, Oasis. But Swervedriver are back and as the salted beads from our brows are patted away, we realise how much we’ve truly missed them.