★★☆☆☆
Two Stars
It feels like Swim Deep have been around forever. The indie kids have been enjoying the impressive opening four singles ‘The Sea’, ‘King City’, ‘She Changes the Weather’ and ‘Honey’ for so long that “Don’t just dream in your sleep/It’s just lazy” is nearing mantra status. Finally the hotly-tipped Birmingham band have released their debut album, but it doesn’t really manage to deliver on its promise.
Building beautifully with an understated intro, the album quickly gets underway with ‘Francisco’, the first track the band ever recorded, sitting appropriately at the start. Cemented hits ‘King City’ and ‘Honey’ are as brilliant exhibitions of summery indie pop cheer as they’ve ever been and are guaranteed to put a smile on your face no matter how many shirt buttons you do up.
However, it was always going to be a big ask for Where The Heaven Are We to live up to the potential found in Swim Deep’s first few singles. Predictably, apart from album opener ‘Francisco’, we feel for much of the album like we’re waiting for the next song we recognize. The slightly aimless, vague sound begins to drag on ‘Colour Your Ways’ and ‘Make My Sun Shine’ as we wait for the unforgettable ‘The Sea’.
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This same phenomenon is to be found as the album draws to a close; ‘She Changes the Weather’ brings the album to a satisfying finish, but one cannot escape the feeling that the band have spread out their strong tracks throughout the album in order to hide the fact that there is rather too much filler.
Fellow B-town indie heroes Peace released their own debut earlier this year, and produced some stunning album tracks by venturing into more mainstream sounds on new single ‘Lovesick’ and indulging their psychedelic tendencies on the brilliant ‘California Daze’. Swim Deep have no such outlets, and their work suffers from a lack of variation. ‘Soul Trippin’ is a particularly condemnable track, sacrificing any decent musicality for confused and contrived philosophy about nothing in particular, and reflects what appears to be the basic problem with the album. Swim Deep have run out of ideas.
Track to Download: Honey
