It’s a Crutchfield double feature!
While last week’s pick featured a solo performance by Katie Crutchfield, today her sister Allison is in the spotlight with the return of Swearin’! The punk band is back with their first album in five years. It finds them grown up and embracing the wisdom that comes with age and experience. “Getting older, your tastes change, and what you want to do changes,” said drummer Jeff Bolt. That much is clear in “Grow into a Ghost.”
The guitars still snarl, and the drums hit just as hard, but the melodies are cleaner and sharper. Crutchfield’s voice is in the center of the mix, gently singing about her desire for love in the back of a New York City cab. “You were somewhere out in the desert/You frame the natural light perfectly/Will you come back soon and/let me love you completely?” she sings, before the band slides into a driving chorus. It’s a quick-moving, impactful song to signal that Swearin’ is back and better than ever.
The band’s third album, Fall into the Sun, will drop on Oct. 5 via Merge Records.