Swapmeet, who hails from Adelaide (known as Radelaide from the one Aussie I know), is a newer—well, at least newer to me; they’ve been around since 2022—indie noise pop group with a penchant for metastasizing, hooky and arresting atmospheres. This new batch of songs comes from their debut album, Mount Zero, and wastes no time.
I also adore that the group is made up of a trio of vocalists who consistently switch lead vocals between Venus O’Broin (who brings a very Slow Pulp vibe) and Jack Medlyn and Maxwell Elphick, who bounce between Alex G and This Is Lorelai feels. The song that got me was the title single “Mount Zero.” It starts wavy and chill until some heavy shoegaze chords chew up the scenery. The repeating melody is also manipulated with some synth action and then immediately cuts out, leading to some fantastic vocal mixing between O’Broin, and, I think, both Medlyn and Elphick. Actually, the whole album is mixed perfectly, sounding crisp at low and high volumes.
“Bonny,” a hungover ode about young and unrequited love, also brings in the grungey wall-of-sound vibe near the end. But like many bands that dabble in the jangle-noise-gaze sound, Swapmeet never gets lost in the drawn-out jams or uses their textures to move the song. Everything is short and sweet, leaving you to crave more, just one more hooky lead line. The drunk lead guitar line in “Halfway” is just weird enough to keep my attention before another burnt-out computer lead line absolutely crushes everything in its path. “2 C U,” throws you a curveball, starting like a heartfelt indie acoustic track, but hiding is the more deranged vibe of the “Halfway” outro. I was reminded of The Velvet Underground, and I don’t say that lightly. “Seeds” also has a malignant lead guitar line that I’ve been searching for since Wednesday’s Bleeds.
Mount Zero might be one of the strongest debuts I’ve heard from a newer band in years. There’s not one skip on this thing.
