Swervedriver ★★★★

Future Ruins ROCK ACTION. CD/DL/LP

The Oxford noisegazers’ on-going reunion is still an inspiring sound.

If 2015’s I Wasn’t Born To Lose You tentatively restarted Swervedriver’s legacy, its follow-up, Future Ruins, achieves everything an admirer could ask of the reunited band’s new album. It’s not just how perfectly the reconvened Swervedriver nail their sound – in particular, the satisfying, muscular heft to the riffs beneath the FX-drenched noise, whether on the heavy stomp of Mary Winter or the insouciant swagger of Spiked Flower – but how engaged Adam Franklin and bandmates sound with their blueprint, how electrified by the possibilities remaining within their confluence of bruised swoon and rampant pedal abuse. Beyond this, though, Swervedriver now possess a melancholic, autumnal undertow that suits them like a little distinguished grey in the whiskers: the resigned chord changes of Theeascending and its cosmic noiseplay are a careerbest peak. In such moments, Future Ruins pulls off a canny trick, perfectly channelling their past, while making sense in the present