By dint of slipping through on the coat-tails of their Oxford contemporaries Ride, SWERVEDRIVER were briefly viewed as serious contenders in the mid-to-latter days of the Shoe-gazing phenomenon on the cusp of the 1990s.
This reviewer enjoyed Ride and the Boo Radleys, but also wrote some pretty damn venomous stuff about a number of their floppy-fringed associates at the time, not least poor old Slowdive. Mind you, it would have been difficult to compete with the Manics' Nicky Wire, who controversially remarked his band hated the poor old 'Dive “more than Adolf Hitler.” There again, they always were good for a headline in the early days of 'Generation Terrorists' were the Manics.
And, let's face it, the Manics have a lot less to be ashamed of than many of the Shoegazing brigade they were trying to fend off circa 1990-91. Yes, the whole spurious movement bequeathed a few classics courtesy of Ride's 'Nowhere', the Boo Radleys' 'Everything's Alright Forever' and (stretching a point) Dinosaur Jr's 'Bug', but history has rightly decreed that the likes of Moose, The Catherine Wheel and Chapterhouse should end up becoming footnotes at best.
Swervedriver were certainly 'hotly-tipped' (always a dangerous epithet, that) by the NME and my old rag SOUNDS for a good while and a succession of searing EPS on Alan McGee's nascent Creation label did them little harm. This writer recalls his own jury being out on them after seeing them in Liverpool around May 1990. Yes, their guitar squall was proud and emotive, but – as was so often the case with this most callow of white rock movements – they suffered from the lack of a charismatic frontman, with Adam Franklin's bored and weedy voice never really rising above the morass of sound.
And, while it must be said their re-issued debut 'Raise' (1991) suffers from this lack of vocal presence, musically it still stands its' ground relatively well. It's the only one of the three official 'Driver albums to feature the original line-up of Franklin (vocals/guitar), Jimmy Hartridge (guitar/ vocals), Adi Vines (bass) and drummer Graham Bonnar and it's surprising to discover it wasn't produced by then-current studio wunderkind Alan Moulder as it has all his FX-overload credentials, plus a sharp, streamlined drum sound which still impresses over 15 years down the line.
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Especially early on, there are still some sweetmeats to savour here. All coiled and rearing riffs, hissing cymbals and malevolent Stooges-esque intent, opener 'Sci Flyer' is still as seething and exciting as ever; the Technicolour, Who-Style overload of 'Son Of Mustang Ford' and the in-your-face delights of 'Rave Down' career around magnificently and the dreamily insistent 'Sunset' shows how effective they could be when they slowed it down a bit.
It does get rather samey and predictable, mind, even though they indulge in some eleventh hour hedging of bets courtesy of the organ stabs and indie-crossover wah-wah guitar on 'Feel So Real' and – after a bracing start – 'Raise' rather runs out of steam. The bonus tracks keep a couple of welcome corkers in reserve courtesy of the brittle, echo-laden dream-pop of 'Andalucia' and the drilled'n'cranked rush of 'Kill The Superheroes': this latter serving as a timely reminder that when all's said and done Swervedriver often had as much in common with Sonic Youth as they did with their Home Counties contemporaries.
'Raise' would go on to make relatively sizeable waves before the UK indie scene was enveloped by the tidal wave of Grunge unleashed by Nirvana's 'Nevermind' later in 1991 and the momentum would carry Swervedriver on to their second album 'Mezcal Head' in 1993, albeit with some changes in personnel. With hindsight, it's a decent, if not world-beating affair which see-saws between the thrill of the moment and the desire to stretch. If you like your guitars looming, spangly and overdriven, you could do worse than backtrack and check it out.
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