Swervedriver
I Wasn’t Born to Lose You
COBRASIDE
5/10
Solidly set in its reunion phase after a seven-year hiatus, Swervedriver has succeeded in capturing some of its former glory. Actually, referring to what the London band had as a “heyday” might be overstating it, as Raise (1991) and Mezcal Head (1993)—while critically lauded—hardly set the US charts ablaze. Swervedriver helped to pioneer the post-grunge shoegaze movement through releases that were loud, distorted, monosyllabic, and very much of-the-moment…back in the ’90s.
That the band is now releasing a new album (seventeen years since its last) is certainly newsworthy, but while comparing I Wasn’t Born to Lose You to their prior work is inevitable, it ensures a disappointing listening experience of the new LP. Lose You is a lush, slightly trippy concoction of alt-rock, but has little in common with what originally made Swervedriver great. The stage is set from the opening riffs of “Autodidact,” and continues through the album’s ten tracks—almost all of which rely on the same mid-tempo, not-quite-jangly-but-not-distorted guitar style and yearning mid-alto vocals. The nuances of previous Swervedriver releases are missing from Lose You, and it’s hard not to wonder if the band has lost a piece of itself along the way as well.
