Swervedriver

Blending the gauzy textures of shoegaze with hard-edged rhythms borrowed from metal, Swervedriver staked out their own territory in the crowded field of ’90s guitar rock. Formed in Oxford in 1989, the band issued a handful of EPs before releasing Raise, their first proper full-length, in the fall of 1991. Raise was well received by the music press for its noisy, hooky tunes, but drummer Graham Bonnar and bassist Adrian “Adi” Vines left the band in its wake, leaving singer/guitarists Adam Franklin and Jimmy Hartridge as Swervedriver’s only original members. The pair forged on with the new rhythm section of Steve George (bass) and Jez Hindmarsh (drums) and released the poppier yet still guitar-heavy Mezcal Head in 1993; that year, they opened for Smashing Pumpkins on their North American tour and seemed poised for a similar crossover. But in the years that followed, Swervedriver experienced ups and downs with labels, releasing two more albums—1995’s pop-leaning Ejector Seat Reservation and 1998’s lighter 99th Dream—before deciding to take a break at the end of 1998. In 2008 the band’s mid-’90s lineup reunited for a tour, and went on runs around the world before releasing their fifth album, I Wasn’t Born to Lose You, in 2015. Future Ruins followed in 2019, and the band rereleased their older material on digital platforms and vinyl in the years that followed.