Space travel rock’n’roll” – that’s how the band initially self-identified their sound. 2015’s I Wasn’t Born To Lose You trumpeted some eternal Swervedriver virtues: the intricate, fissile guitar patterns of Adam Franklin and Jimmy Hartridge, baked hard then dispatched in giant monolithic waves by the tactile rhythm section. As the opening song “Autodidact” had it: “Holy fuel forever spilled”.
        The new album is titled Future Ruins. It opens with a song narrated by a familiar Swervedriver archetype: a traveler, hurtling away from this world. But where is the traveler headed? The second song, “The Lonely Crowd Fades In The Air”, offers some possible answers.
        And the journey continues as Swervedriver rides on.  Future Ruins presents a band moving with real time vitality. It showcases new tricks: pop songs which don’t have choruses, odd arrangements and weird contrasts, like “Spiked Flower”’s rock’n’roll grind breaking out to acknowledge English landscape painter John Constable; and a lyric that references Echo & The Bunnymen. See if you can spot that one…
        Swervedriver will be careening through their set infused with road-slick fumes this year at SXSW…..

Programming descriptions are generated by participants and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SXSW.