Swimming are either ahead of the game or someway behind the times. It’s a bit difficult to tell really.

As we are currently experiencing something of an 80s revival my calculations show that this band’s late 90s indie pop should be back in vogue by circa 2025. So we’ve got a little while to go yet.

But it would be a pity to write off a band just because they aren’t playing the right synthesisers or using this month’s choice of distortion pedals. Swimming are an indie band with more energy than an Olympic pool full of Lucozade.

Their current single, “Panthalassa” features two original tracks along with a selection of remixes. The music comes straight from tail end of the last century. Comparisons could easily be made with Mansun, the too little heard Ultrasound and the practically unheard of Elcka.

The lyrics also capture something of the vibe of the late 90s, a halcyon pre-credit crunch era when the country had rid itself of a scandal ridden government and was looking forward to a new, hope filled era. If only we’d listened to Radiohead more…….

Swimming’s songs recapture the anything-is-possible attitude as brought to us by Oasis and a pack of Brit-rock hopefuls. And so “Panthalassa” is full of new beginnings, breaking free from a chrysalis and embracing a magical world. The song’s name fittingly comes from the geological term to describe the ocean surrounding the Earth’s single landmass before it broke up into the continents we know today.

Second track “Crash the Current” is full of hope too: “You’ve been so low/I’ll comfort you” runs one lyric. The song is full to the brim with energy with talk of dynamite, crashes and big bangs.

The music here sounds almost foreign. There’s not much in the way of big, brash sounding bands out there at the moment. Kasabian continue to carry the torch for the Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough” school of rock but its done with a bitter snarl instead of the hope found in the last decade.

In an era so obsessed with Coldplay-ish naval gazing and where-did-it-all-go-wrongs it makes for a change to hear a band who are still keen to play the mindless optimism card every once in a while.

The remaining tracks on the CD are remixes worthy of the era the band are recalling. There’s the gritty, dirty sounding one (“Zero Theory Remix”), the high pitched, helium one (“We Show Up on Radar Remix”) and the remix thatPiL could have done (“Russian Linesman Remix”).

In music, lyrics and remixes this band have managed to capture the optimism of a lost age that is, in truth, not that far behind us. I like my miserable music as much as the next Morrissey fan, but for someone whose introduction to pop music was Blur’s “Country House” a couple more tracks like these every so often wouldn’t go amiss.

Rating: 8/10

Format: Single

Release date: 15/06/09

Record Label: Colourschool

http://www.myspace.com/swimmingband

01/07/09 - First published on www.noizemakesenemies.co.uk on this link