No matter what anyone tells you, consistency is the true key to success within the music industry. If you can stack up a strong set of releases in quick and riveting succession, you will be remembered and respected long into the future no matter what. That’s exactly what Pure Noise Records have nailed over the years and continue to nail with the roster they have pulled together. After a stellar 2015 filled with some of the strongest albums released across the whole of the alternative landscape, their latest and one of the first of 2016 to add to their long line of master strokes has the makings of leaving just as lasting impression on the scene. Introducing Can’t Swim.

Echoing the harmonies of early Transit mixed with the scars and impressions of a punctured heart that Man Overboard demonstrate so well, the band’s debut EP ‘Death Deserves A Name’ feels like a lump in the back of your throat that simply won’t shift. The harrowing and gritty punches of ‘Your Clothes’, the jittering and gorgeous melancholy of the title track and intensely captivating ‘Come Home’ help make the band’s first offering a quick and hugely entertaining blast of alternative pop punk that leaves the potent taste of blood in your mouth and a ringing in your ear and that won’t fade away any time soon.

Overall ’Death Deserves A Name’ is a claustrophobic, intense and unmistakably excellent grip of the wind pipe from a band with plenty of angst and agony to exorcise. With enough pop punk influence to fit into the more direct of musical streams but injecting enough darkness and bite to keep things feeling fresh and fierce, Can’t Swim have the makings of real scene stalwarts even at this early stage in their turmoil-stained journey.

4.5/5

‘Death Deserves A Name’ EP by Can’t Swim is released on February 26th on Pure Noise Records.

Can’t Swim links: Facebook|Twitter

Words by Jack Rogers (@JackMRog)