Two weeks ago Khayem posted Creation Myths, an hour and twenty minute long mix of songs released by Creation Records between 1989 and 1991. It is a wonderful time capsule, a spicy soup of electric and acoustic guitars, dance beats, distortion, noise and melodies. Tucked away inside were two songs by a band I haven't even thought about for years/ decades and certainly not listened to in as long- Swervedriver. Swervedriver were from oxford and were deeply inspired by American bands- most Creation bands who were influenced by US groups loved Love, Buffalo Springfield and The Velvet Underground. Swervedriver wanted to sound like Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth and Husker Du and to be fair they did a good job of it. Huge crunchy guitar riffs, snarly FX pedals, wah wah and tremelo, thumping drums and multi- tracked, stoned vocals. Heavy, rocking shoegaze with dreadlocks. They sounded like what they sang about- the open road, hot sun beating down on tarmac, speeding cars and gas stations, all the cliches but done so well.
Never Lose That Feeling came out in May 1992 and was produced by Alan Moulder who made a lot of Creation groups sound big- it's woozy, stoned but speedy rock.
Rave Down was on Khayem's mix and is my favourite Swervedriver song (although I don't own a physical or digital copy). It came out in 1990 and then appeared on their debut album Raise a year later. It's a blast with a bulldozing, churning chord change and vocals to match.
