Swansea Sound Twentieth Century

Second Album 'Twentieth Century' From Indie Agitators Swansea Sound!On their second album, Swansea Sound present a set of songs as infectious as anything from their previous incarnations. The raw energy of Hue's old band The Pooh Sticks is still there; the indiepop sugar rush of Amelia's Heavenly is still as sweet as ever. But these songs are laced with venom and sardonic wit. Swansea Sound have visited this terrain before: their catchy debut single 'Corporate Indie Band' was a sly tribute to a music scene that had lost all its authenticity, with its bands in hock to social media managers: corporate puppets play-acting at independence.In 'Twentieth Century', Swansea Sound take it a lot further, having a good look at the heroes of their youth - the fabled eras of rock, punk, post-punk, electro futurism - and considering whether the prophets that emerged from those scenes were of any use whatsoever. In 'Paradise', the electric synth-bleeps conjure up the dated futurism of the 1980s - with all its optimism about a digital nirvana: a nirvana that turned out to consist of Cambridge Analytica, OnlyFans, Spotify and chatrooms populated with incels. The song is as catchy as hell, and might remind you of Magazine. 'Twentieth Century', the title track, plays out the egotism of a punk rocker in combat gear, armed with a decent major label deal, singing (with less and less conviction) about revolution: OK, that was grim. But 'Far Far Away' is a pretty straightforward love song to Pete Shelley. He was great..All these and the further songs are indiepop, if you insist. They are full of earworms and they will make you want to dance. But they are also full of funny, complex, mordant ideas - and maybe that's why you'll want to hear them many times over.