Swervedriver have today given a preview of what is to come with ‘Flawed’, which drops August 14th. ‘Flawed’ is the first taste of what is to come with ‘raise:demos’, releasing October 23rd via Outer Battery Records.
Swervedriver just handed us the purest possible version of themselves and of course it arrives with a title that basically dares you to find something wrong with it. ‘Flawed’, the second track from the upcoming ‘Raise: Demos’ collection, lands like the band walked into that Camden rehearsal space in the winter of 1990, hit record on a four track Portastudio, and simply refused to overthink a single second. The guitars still roar with that unmistakable Swervedriver force, the kind of molten propulsion that always set them apart from their more delicate Oxford neighbors, yet here everything feels looser, hungrier, and closer to the floor. It is the sound of a band that already knew exactly what it wanted long before the studio polish arrived.
What makes this version hit so hard is how little it cares about perfection. The rhythms push and pull with a live room urgency that the finished Raise sometimes sanded down, while the melodies still shine through the haze like streetlights in rain. Adam Franklin’s vocal sits right in the middle of the storm, half resigned and half defiant, delivering lines about ideals that never quite hold up without ever sounding bitter. You can practically smell the cigarette smoke and feel the cheap carpet underfoot. This is the exact moment their distinctive blend of brute volume and miraculous melody locked into place, and hearing it this raw is almost unfairly exciting.
‘Raise: Demos’ as a whole promises a full set of these instinctive takes, songs that ultimately became one of the defining guitar records of the early nineties but first existed in this more immediate, psychedelic form. ‘Flawed’ already proves the point. Where the later recordings gained density and sheen, this one keeps the edges sharp and the energy restless. It reminds you why people still lose their minds over those early Creation days: not because the songs were flawless, but because they crackled with the kind of restless invention that no amount of production can fake.
October 23 cannot come soon enough. Whether you grab the limited cassette, the silver vinyl, the red edition with its film strip packaging, or just the digital files, ‘Flawed’ is the perfect entry point. It is Swervedriver before the legend fully solidified, still dangerous, still melodic, and still completely intoxicating. Thirty five years later the perfect ideal remains gloriously, beautifully intact.
About ‘raise:demos’
This October, the band will release Raise: Demos – a unique collection of original demo recordings that ultimately became their seminal 1991 debut album, Raise. Offering a rare glimpse into Swervedriver at the exact moment their distinctive sound took shape, the collection encompasses rawer, looser interpretations that were closer to the band’s original vision for the album than the finished record that followed. Recorded during the Raise sessions, these demos capture the songs in a stunningly immediate form, before the production and studio process transformed them into one of the defining guitar bands of the early ’90s.
Raise: Demos provides a fascinating companion piece, stripping the songs back to their foundations and revealing the ferocious, psychedelic energy that encapsulated Swervedriver’s music at the time. For a band that has always balanced brute-force volume with miraculous melody, texture and experimentation, these recordings offer a unique perspective on the making of Raise.
The release also pays tribute to the humble origins of the recordings themselves. The original demos were recorded to cassette, and in keeping with that history, Swervedriver and Outer Battery Records will issue a strictly limited run of 300 cassettes, available exclusively via their webstore and Swervedriver’s Bandcamp. Raise: Demos will also be available digitally, on CD, and silver vinyl (standard edition), as well as in a highly limited run of red vinyl (400 copies). The latter will come packaged with a film-strip-style reproduction of the images featured on the record’s back cover.
For anyone revisiting Raise this year on its 35th anniversary, Raise: Demos offers fans the chance to hear one of Swervedriver’s most important records from two very different perspective: the definitive album as it has come to be known, and the rough-edged, instinctive recordings that reveal where it all began.
‘raise:demos’ Tracklist
- Sandblasted
- Flawed
- Feel So Real
- Deep Seat
- Sunset
- Hands
- Pile Up
- Lead Me Where You Dare
- Sci Flyer
- Mustang IV
LINKS:
https://www.swervedriver.com/
https://www.facebook.com/swervedriverofficial/
https://www.youtube.com/@SwervedriverOfficial/
https://www.instagram.com/swervedriverofficial/
https://swervedriver.bandcamp.com/