{"product_id":"swansea-sound-pre-post-truth","title":"Swansea Sound - Pre-Post-Truth","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e‘Pre-post-truth’\u003c\/em\u003e sees \u003cstrong\u003eSwansea Sound\u003c\/strong\u003e expand their musical ambition and broaden their lyrical targets. This album is loud and it’s outspoken, but it’s also energetic, emotional and very witty. There’s an awareness of impotence too: the songs are often self-mocking, asking if it’s even possible to make subversive statements in a world where the communication channels are all owned by the tech-bros themselves.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eThe Grease That Oils the Wheels\u003c\/em\u003e, a runaway train of a song, \u003cstrong\u003eAmelia\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003eHue\u003c\/strong\u003e sing three duets: in the first part, they’re a young couple struggling to make ends meet in a gig economy dominated by Uber and Deliveroo; in the second they are in a middle class band, arguing how much money they should spend on online influencers to achieve digital fame, and in the third they are a wealthy political couple (think \u003cstrong\u003eNick Clegg\u003c\/strong\u003e and his wife) who’ve traded in their political influence to secure lucrative jobs advising big-tech companies. The one thing all three pairs have in common is that they are totally expendable: they are merely the grease that oils the wheels.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e20mph\u003c\/em\u003e, musically more akin to \u003cstrong\u003eWire\u003c\/strong\u003e or \u003cstrong\u003eThe Ruts\u003c\/strong\u003e, presents a tech-bro who is surprised how easy it is to stir his British followers up into a frenzy of fascistic rage – ‘I thought they’d go for trans\/but no, it’s speeding bans’. The choruses feature the fired-up mob, chanting the song title as they head out to destroy another speed camera and replace it with a Union Jack.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOther tracks come at the same theme from different angles: the poignant, chiming \u003cstrong\u003eFlamin Groovies\u003c\/strong\u003e-like \u003cem\u003eOn Our Own\u003c\/em\u003e traces the history of a building and the people who inhabited it: once upon a time it was a small venue where the band first played; in the 80s it was demolished to make way for an office block, giving employment to the white collar working class (‘the work was dull but paid enough’), and now the building lies empty: all those clerical jobs have been sucked up by AI. The friends who played and worked together don’t hang out any more because they are all stuck at home, doom-scrolling.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut there’s no point getting nostalgic. As the title of the album suggests, the pre-post-truth era of innocence is long-gone, if it existed at all. The eerie psych pop of \u003cem\u003eThat Life\u003c\/em\u003e sees the band immersed in a haze of memory, struggling to access some Utopian space that may be a pre-tech world, or may be childhood – it’s hard to separate the two.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEither way, it has disappeared. And, as \u003cem\u003eMean To Be Mean\u003c\/em\u003e reminds us, it wasn’t that great in the past anyway: a world dominated by well-paid opinion-formers, mostly male, who had the power to police our culture.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis may all sound a bit serious, and it is, but Swansea Sound never sound solemn, and take the piss out of themselves quite happily. In \u003cem\u003eMerch Stall\u003c\/em\u003e the cosy world of DIY indie gigs is mocked, and in \u003cem\u003eSell Out Everything\u003c\/em\u003e, the owner of a supposedly subversive record label celebrates his ability to promote his music on social media: ‘We like to stick with X\/Cos Threads don’t get you very far. We sell out everything.’\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere are love songs here too. \u003cem\u003eWrong Way Round\u003c\/em\u003e, sweet, warm and catchy in a \u003cstrong\u003eSqueeze\u003c\/strong\u003e kind of a way, is a fond tribute to a loved one who can gently nudge you out of depression. \u003cem\u003eDouble de-clutch\u003c\/em\u003e is an ode to the \u003cstrong\u003eDylan Thomas\u003c\/strong\u003e book-bus, sometimes seen at music festivals in Wales. Its owner, \u003cstrong\u003eJeff Towns\u003c\/strong\u003e, realised it was hard to get people to come and buy poetry books from his shop, so converted an old bus into a mobile store and took the books to the people instead: a temporary, mobile, analogue idyll. Dylan Thomas himself is echoed in the lyrics, linking the song back to a truly bygone time, an imagined pre-post-truth era, where maybe we saw things more clearly.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor now though, Swansea Sound are not downbeat, and have faith in the restorative power of loud pop music. Pub-rocker \u003cem\u003eThe Band That Brought Back Rock n Roll\u003c\/em\u003e may be 100% sardonic, but you can definitely throw yourself around to it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe songs and lyrics are written by \u003cstrong\u003eRob Pursey\u003c\/strong\u003e. Artwork is by \u003cstrong\u003eCatrin James\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe band will be playing a series of UK live dates in November and December to promote \u003cem\u003ePre-Post Truth\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"SKEP WAX RECORDS","offers":[{"title":"Turquoise Vinyl LP","offer_id":59260072329561,"sku":"SDZ-51532","price":27.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":59260072395097,"sku":"SDZ-51533","price":13.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0588\/3455\/0945\/files\/CAR_20260901_1400_131149_017_v_5055869552547_002.jpg?v=1788268477","url":"https:\/\/spindizzyrecords.com\/products\/swansea-sound-pre-post-truth","provider":"Spindizzy Dublin","version":"1.0","type":"link"}