On this third Swansea Sound album it is really apparent how much this super-group have probably upended indie expectations for some listeners. I mean, looking at who's here -- Hue Williams (The Pooh Sticks), Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey (Talulah Gosh, Heavenly), Bob Collins (The Dentists), and Ian Button (Death in Vegas, Louis Philippe) -- and you can see how easily it would have been for the band to fall back on the sounds of the past. Instead, the fresh and robust jangle-rock of Pre-post-truth signals that these five have so much left to say, and so much left to add to the indie-rock form.
On this, their third full-length record, this quintet almost sounds a little dangerous now, a group of tough veterans who could probably lick, say, Shed Seven in a bar-brawl but who are just too nice to think of such nonsense. All kidding aside, there are very few indie groups who can crank out biting lyrics with this much heart.
That kind of smart energy is channeled here into tunes which tackle tech bros ("20 MPH"), indie venues ("On Our Own"), and right-wing craziness ("You Lost Your Mind"), among other things. And while Pre-post-truth is by no means an issues album, it is a topically-astute record. Leave it to a bunch of genre-lifers to make an album that makes this kind of music a little more relevant than it has been of late in younger hands.
And yet, clearly, this is a record about the past in many ways, made by folks who've had their hands in some truly great stuff prior to being in this band. Hue sings that "that life is gone" in "That Life" even as "Sentimental" reveals a little awareness of the comfort of looking back at the better days of indie. But were they really so much better then? For this lot, that kind of backward glance means reflecting on the music business and just how much of a struggle it was and remains ("Merch Stall", "The Grease That Oils the Wheel"). The struggle continues and tunes like these are the rewards.
No one is going to be writing a song titled "The Band That Brought Back Rock and Roll" about Swansea Sound, but maybe they should? These are songs full of wit and life, not squabbling Mancs cribbing riffs from Slade again. For all the ink spilled about Oasis (the presumed subjects of that song), it's worth remembering a pre-Britpop world of UK indie. Here in 2026 one has to sort of marvel at how Swansea Sound have tapped into the same sort of DIY energy that these individual players had 30+ years ago in a host of bands. Rather than trot out old hits on a reunion tour, the members of Swansea Sound turn their attention here in 2026 to pushing things in new directions. And while parts of Pre-post-truth might sound like portions of, say, Heavenly, or The Pooh Sticks, or whatever, the rock-and-roll here is brash and smart in ways suited to this era. You could say that the indie of these folks never went out of style, or you could say that these five musicians found a way to make it clever and exciting again in a very cynical age. So take a lesson from "Wrong Way Round" and the delightful video: put down your phones and listen!
Pre-post-truth by Swansea Sound is out today. Details via Skep Wax, and you can pre-order here.
[Photo: Tiger Lily]