When the limitation of a musician’s current band are restricting the expression of new ideas which may not be appropriate for the main band, it’s only natural that they may want to form another band to fill that creative outlet.  They may not want to leave their current band, but simply these new ideas may not suit the style of their main band. If it goes well sometimes the side project can gain a lot of acclaim over the primary act. For instance Padraig Cooney’s Skelocrats are gaining a lot of positive attention, while his first band Land Lovers takes a back seat for now. With that in mind, lead vocalist of Swimmers is Bouts bass player Niall Jackson.

First song Countryside pulls off that difficult trick of feeling familiar even on the first listen. Niall Jackson’s voice is reminiscent of Kasabian’s Tom Meighan. It is a neutral sounding singing quality which is so smoothly palatable. When his voice is allied to the opening riff, it ropes you in with an engaging combination.

Laguna is a languid mid tempo track. While Countryside reels you in from the start, Laguna saunters along. It is a warm feeling song, but it is missing that something special to really lodge itself in your mind. Last up is The Search where the vocals are thankfully more impassioned on this track, as three tracks with the same vocal style would have been repetitive. The Search is a rousing song to end the EP on.

While there is nothing revolutionary or ground breaking about the music on the ‘Swimmer’s Year EP’, it is an easy listen. A criticism is that Swimmers would need to demonstrate a change of tempo or dynamics as all three tracks are similarly paced.  While the pacing isn’t necessarily a major problem on a short EP, if Swimmers are to grow as a band they will have to display greater variety and depth to their song writing. Countryside in particular hints of greater things to come from Swimmers, if they manage to build upon this solid offering.