Wondrous news! Christmas is coming early this year! Because on the 13th of November, Skep Wax Records is releasing the third full-length by British-Welsh indie supergroup Swansea Sound, Pre-Post-Truth!
That’s right—the smartest, wittiest, and hardest-rocking band ever to be labeled (and don’t even think of saying it to their faces) twee is back, and they’re even letting me buy it, despite the fact that I myself once called them twee! For which they gave me a thorough thrashing, after which all was forgiven!
And even better news! Swansea Sound, who split the difference between high-intellect protest songs, sardonic digs at the music industry, and lovely songs that will make you happier than Krishna’s favorite cow, have released two singles to whet your appetite for the full meal, “Mean to Be Mean” and “On Our Own.”
Both of which offer further proof that Swansea Sound, who are charming on record, even more charming live (I was lucky enough to catch them in Philadelphia at Johnny & Brenda’s) and exceptionally charming in person, continue to play their A Game since I first heard such early songs as “Corporate Indie Band” and (the tongue-in-cheek paean to Hue and Amelia’s old band) “The Pooh Sticks.”
Swansea Sound are Amelia Fletcher on vocals and guitar, Hue Williams on vocals, Rob Pursey (who writes the songs) on bass, Bob Collins on lead guitar, and Ian Button on drums. I’m talking influential members of such bands as Heavenly, the Pooh Sticks, Death in Vegas, The Dentists, and two handfuls of other great bands, such as Thrashing Doves, Talulah Gosh, Tender Trap, Catenary Wires, The Beatles…
Like two of my all-time Swansea Sound faves (“Markin’ It Down” and “Keep Your Head On”), “Mean to Be Mean” is a back-and-forth conversational duet between Amelia and Hue Williams. Unlike the aforementioned songs, which fall into the realm of flirtation (at a used record store and night class, respectively), “Mean to Be Mean” is anything but flirtatious.
Hue plays a regretful music journalist trying to apologize for all the nasty things he wrote about Amelia’s bands (and others) back in the day. For her part, Amelia is anything but a soft sell. I heard it once and immediately wrote to the band in search of dirt—the likes of Talulah Gosh and Heavenly caught a lot of cruel flak from the music magazine boys’ club back in the day. And what I wanted was the name of the scribe they were singing about.
So I wrote Rob Pursey, who replied, “There are a number of candidates for who the journalist might be. It would be easy to name one, but it would be unfair: the attitude mocked in the song was very common at the time—and I guess it still is, but it’s found on social media sites these days, now that the music magazines have mainly withered and died.”
Oh come on! Music critic version of the House Un-American Activities Committee that I am, I demand names! Swansea Sound, do you want to continue working in the music biz? Are you begging to be blacklisted? Am I really going to have to sic Roy Cohn on you? I’m not playing wiffle ball here!
But onward and upwards to the song!
Against the background of some punch-to-the-kisser, muscle-car fast and very melodic punk, Fletcher flings Williams’ past words in his face, while he comes up, again and again, with weak-chinned excuses:
AF: You said my old band was twee
HW Yeah, but I meant it with irony
AF: Said we were too wet to play
HW: But that wasn’t really what I meant to say
That’s how it begins, and things go downhill from there:
AF: You said girls could not be punks
HW: Let me off please, I was drunk
AF: You said we should all fuck off
HW: I was only trying to keep my job
And on it goes, and Williams does some serious cringing:
HW: You said I was reactionary
AF: That was relatively kind of me
HW: It was hurtful, it was cruel
AF: Tell it to your primary school
But the really brutal dig comes in the bridge:
HW: Is it far too late to have this argument about what was meant?
AF: Now I see you’re trying escapology/Your apology’s no good to me
And final verse:
HW: Deep down, we were always friends
AF: No, you were a real bellend!
Pursey wrote me, “I feel a bit guilty that Hue, once again, has to play the bad guy in a duet. Having said that, in a recent single (“Music Lover”), Amelia had to be Elon Musk.”
Sexism is as ubiquitous in this world as racism, and “Your apology means nothing to me” is as good a response to it as any, aside from a field-goal-strength kick to the bollocks. What sets “Mean to Be Mean” apart from many musical feminist responses to sexism is that it’s not didactic. Instead of naked invective, we get humor. And as everyone knows, a little bit of humor helps the medicine go down.
To sum up, mark November 13 on your calendar because the Pre-Post-Truth of the matter is that Pre-Post-Truth will be a contender for your album of the year.
Oh, and Rob: Spill! Dish! The ghost of Joseph McCarthy wants names!
GRADED ON A CURVE:
Ae
