Putting the trash out, feeling the rain through a window screen, assisting a parent with small tasks: The three vocalists of Swapmeet use these mundane memories as the glue that holds together their pleasurable, climate-controlled indie rock. You don’t have to squint to see the similarities to the Australian quartet’s Winspear labelmates like Wishy and Slow Pulp, a little Alex G worship, and a few detours into solemn slowcore. But their tales of fragile relationships, dead-end jobs, and mediocre friendships are fleshed out with patient details straight out of a Kelly Reichardt film. All of the minutiae helps them thrive with a familiar noise-pop style while underlining how enormous adulthood feels as a 24-year-old.
Swapmeet offer a more muscular take on the catchy, shoegaze-inspired material that their peers tend to favor. The grunge guitars, hungover acoustics, and sandpaper drums are elevated by the easy vocal interplay between Venus O’Brion, Jack Medlyn, and Maxwell Elphick. If an otherwise unexceptional song on Mount Zero is nearing its conclusion, be prepared for an epilogue where Medlyn or Elphick clicks on the distortion.
No score yet, be the first to add.
There’s also a palpable excitement over the possibilities afforded by playing around in the studio. It makes sense when you consider Medlyn recently stated that he’d like to live inside Ableton; “We’re a trial and error band,” he added, a technique that might have led them to spike the lethargic “Personal (Don’t Take It)” with arresting shards of clarinet. My favorite touch comes on “Sand,” which bobs along on ’00s radio rock atmosphere. A spry piano jumps in, prompting O’Brion and Medlyn to harmonize. Both vocalists bring an exasperated glow to the song, as if they’re making a long distance call that could make or break the relationship.
So much emotional heft is packed into such tiny pockets. But further listens reveal something uneasy below the surface. Mentions of death grab your attention, and many lyrics seem to acknowledge that, even in a committed relationship, sometimes your partner doesn’t have your best interest in mind. Nowhere is that clearer than on “My Heart Breaks II,” where O’Brion starts to unravel on Christmas before offering a bleak portrait of a breakup. “Glass on the ground/Blood in the sink,” she sings, some minor accident or act of violence lurking around the corner.
Most of all, I’m haunted by how “My Heart Breaks II” ends by cutting off O’Brion mid-sentence. You might think of D’Angelo’s “Untitled (How Does It Feel),” which pulled a similar trick to express such an intense state of ecstasy that the music didn’t have anywhere else to go. It’s the opposite of “My Heart Breaks II,” which evaporates into air right as O’Brion sounds like she can’t get much lower. This is Swapmeet’s brand of emotional insight: You start by poring over the details and then you’re left gasping for breath.
