by Liz Van Horn (@cokezer0hero)
Steel Country, Swim Camp’s fourth full-length album, is easily the Philly-based project’s most sonically confident album yet. Actualized by Tom Morris in 2015 as an outlet to learn guitar, Swim Camp is now two years shy of a decade old this year, and one will find it difficult to listen to Steel Country without feeling at least a little proud of how far the project has come.
The album grabs from a wide range of influences such as lo-fi indie pop, shoegaze, and even country, but it simultaneously remains true to the slowcore beginnings of Swim Camp. It is lyrically engaging while using the most accessible language possible, and arguably purposely so. In “Dougie,” the opening lyrics “[f]eeling funny, not quite myself lately / Spend some money, buy some shit I do not need” sound like raw thoughts, evoking pathos that allows the listener to easily relate to and connect with the album. While some artists seem to prefer listeners to keep a Thesaurus.com tab open alongside an album, Morris, on the other hand, wants the listener to understand exactly what he’s trying to say as he says it. He writes songs like a friend soliciting advice or recounting a story from last summer, and as a listener, you become a friendly ear.
In addition to raw ballads, Steel Country features some experimental distortion sprinkled into interludes (“cLotine” and “Hevvin00”) as well as into the closing track “What I Saw”. These electronic moments comfortably exist within what is mainly an indie rock album because their stripped down nature feels as vulnerable as the lyrics themselves.
Steel Country’s seemingly effortless simplicity is probably the strongest part of the album. It stays true to the reason the band exists, and doesn’t wish to create a hierarchy between the creator and the listener. The album--or arguably Swim Camp in its entirety--in addition to showcasing Morris’ hard-earned talent, assures listeners who are hesitant about making their own music that they can and should pick up an instrument and follow the project’s lead. From the album’s accessibility grows a sense of community and encouragement, and one can expect to finish Steel Country feeling absolutely inspired by it.