Francesco Amoroso per TRISTE©

There’s a quiet severity to Bones, swelt’s debut album. Their spare slowcore drifts through hazy post-rock, lo-fi Americana, and experimental folk with an almost hypnotic patience, giving room to every muffled guitar line and whispered vocal. The album carries the weight of isolation in its still, hushed atmosphere, and what makes Bones so moving is precisely this restraint. Swelt avoid sonic explosions unless absolutely necessary, letting the songs unwind and breathe before breaking into distortion or sinking into melancholy. It’s easy enough to trace the influence of bands like Low and Songs: Ohia in the slowness and negative space between notes, but the album never feels derivative; instead, it sounds like a band deliberately paring their music down to reveal only the essential elements. Recorded in a remote studio on the far north coast of Scotland, Bones feels inseparable from that landscape. There’s an earthy, windswept quality that pervades the album, mirrored in Reuben Brunt’s lyricism. Even in its darkest moments, however, the record never feels cold. Made up of fragmented, slow-burning songs, Bones is vulnerable, contemplative, intimate, and deeply human: music created by a band whose sound draws on ’70s folk, slowcore, and post-rock while remaining distinctly personal.

Bones, track-by-track (by Reuben Brunt)

“Our dream was to capture the record in one focused string of sessions, in complete isolation, so we were delighted when our old friend Jamie Lockhart (Greenmount Studios, Mi Mye) told us he was building a new residential studio right up on the far north coast of Scotland. We also knew that his positive, open and creative spirit meant he’d be a great person to record the album with, especially as we wanted to stay true to our core ethos of our music being minimal, direct and intentional, keeping overdubs and flourishes to an absolute minimum.“

TRACK BY TRACK 

01. Fool

Fool started with an idea that I, Reuben (vocals, guitar, violin), brought to the practice room when we started writing Bones in 2024, but it morphed and merged so much that it ended up sounding very different. We kept the original chords and kept jamming it. Ant (bass) then came up with this cool bass line that drives the song along. The song then evolved more with Alex (drums, vocals) coming in on vocals for a lead line in the chorus. Chris (guitar) tracked some droney slide guitar overdubs which gives the song what we’ve nicknamed “desert slowcore”. This song is a statement of intent for the whole album and encapsulates the stripped back, direct approach we took to recording.

02. Dust

This also started with a simple melodic idea which we played with for a while before it really took shape. At one point it sounded like a doomy medieval chant with all of us singing. Again, it evolved a lot as we brought in new guitar lines and melodies. The chorus came through jamming in the studio with Chris playing some Americana sounding chords over the top. I took the recording away and came up with a vocal melody for the chorus which made us see the song in a new light. It features vocal harmonies between me and Alex, as well as some additional vocals from my partner Mali, who sang on a few songs. Lyrically it explores the idea of someone thinking they’re ok but their behaviour suggests otherwise. It also explores failure and contentment in a society where a lot of value is placed on success, and how that pressure can drive you a bit mad sometimes.

03. Astray

This was one of the last tracks that came together during the writing sessions. It feels like a bit of a departure from our usual sound, leaning into more of a rhythmic psychey feel. It was a lot of fun to record – Jamie, our producer, experimented with detuning Chris’ guitar part which gave it this kind of spacey woozy vibe. On Jamie’s suggestion we slowed the track right down after the first couple takes weren’t feeling right, and it really clicked into place.

04. Cut Out

This track was originally inspired by an EP made by Low and Dirty Three in 2001 where they collaborated in a studio in the Netherlands for two days and came up with some amazing stuff including an ace Neil Young cover (the EP is called In the Fishtank). This EP was a big inspiration when we started the band, and it’s still something we often come back to as a reference point. It’s one of our most freeform tracks, which came together entirely in the practice room, building on fragments of guitar and violin lines, moving between sparse grooves and heavy noise sections and screaming. We recorded this one late at night which kind of evoked a live, gig like performance. Where we recorded, in Skerray on the north coast of Scotland, it never got fully dark as it was the summer solstice so we could often track into the night and lose sense of time. It conjured up this kind of surreal atmosphere which put us in a great headspace to be creative and playful during tracking.

05. Red Gorse

The first track on side 2 of the LP, this was the last track that came together for Bones. This started out sounding completely different, originally quite a fast track with a driving beat. After a bit of time and not feeling fully satisfied with it, we ended up turning it on its head, slowing it right down, but keeping the driving drum pattern. We were also listening to Deafheaven a fair bit, especially the track Irresistible off Sunbather, which ended up being one of the core bits of inspiration for the new direction of the track, especially the guitar melodies.

06. Bones

This track is lyrically inspired by the Polish novel Drive your Plough Through the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk. The song has an off kilter rhythm and leans more towards our early wave post rock sound with inspiration coming from late era Talk Talk and Mark Hollis’s solo record. Following in Hollis’s legacy, using space as a tool in the music. He is a massive influence and incredible artist! Recording the track was quite cathartic, laying down loads of guitar feedback and primal screaming. It was one of the first songs (maybe even the first) we wrote for the album, we knew we wanted to have a moment of release and noise on the LP.

07. Corner

This is the most violin led track on the album, which has more of a melodic feel from the strings and layered vocal harmonies. When we were writing we knew we wanted to lean into the dual vocals between me and Alex, having our voices intertwine and meld. Our voices sit in quite different registers so it’s a nice combination. With this in mind, we were inspired by some bands we grew up listening to, like Dirty Projectors and Grizzly Bear.

08. Marie

This is one of the older tracks on the record, mostly written by me at home in his South London flat. It’s influenced by Jason Molina/ Songs: Ohia who was a big inspiration on the record as a whole. The track builds and shifts very gradually, with melodies interweaving across various instruments like the flugelhorn, violin and piano to create contrast. We were really intentional in keeping it restrained and minimal, trying to be intentional with every part in the song, as opposed to layering instruments for the sake of it, which is an easy trap to fall into. It’s quite an emotional song for me to sing, and we wanted that rawness and vulnerability to stay at the core of the track.

09. Dog Bark

Seeing the album out, this track was also one of the last ones we finished before we headed up to Scotland to record. We were debating whether it would be easier to track it to a click as it’s such a sparse song, but we decided to capture it live and embrace the energy and nuances of recording together, especially as we were really into my original demo which had this nice sparse, lo-fi feel. As a result it’s some of the band’s favourite track on the record. To us, it almost feels like a goodbye, it had an almost heavy feeling when we recorded it in this beautiful small studio overlooking the North Sea, as our time tracking drew to a close. We knew we’d made something we were really happy with, and in these anxious times it was special to spend some time in isolation, focused entirely on a creative pursuit.

Bones is out now. Look HERE for more information on swelt.