Album Review: A. Swayze & The Ghosts plead ‘Let’s Live A Life Better Than This’ in a brilliant sophomore album that cements their place in the pantheon of antipodean greats.

A. Swayze and the Ghosts are undeniably one of Tasmanian’s finest exports (along with a horror-tinged brand of southern gothicism, unfiltered Gin and the Dark Mofo Festival) and create an immensely satisfying new wave punk affront that is both dynamic and visceral.

Their debut album ‘Paid Salvation’, released back in 2020, was itself a long time coming (see my review here) and there has been a lot water of passed under the Tasman Bridge since then. But time has passed well: the new album ‘Let’s Live A Life Better Than This’ shows astonishing growth and maturity, splashing many more colours on a canvas that was already blinding.

The band is packed full of a swaggering insouciance both live and on record: a piratical sense of bravado that is tempered with a degree of humour and warmth. An Antarctic gale force wind with a sub-tropical undercurrent that creates an enormously satisfying contrapuntal force.

A. Swayze & The Ghosts have expanded to a five piece since their debut release and this has certainly lead to a fuller, more nuanced sound.

Enigmatic front man Andrew Swayze says of the album:

For us, ‘Let’s Live a Life Better Than This’ is more than just a collection of songs. The making of it was the anvil upon which we were forged over the past four years of transformation. Each song is an honest and intimate document of something observed or learned during that time. It wasn’t until we finished the album that we realized the long, at times challenging, but cathartic process of its making was exactly what each of us needed to grow. Being able to share this reflection of ourselves with you—the people our music truly connects with—in person, is a profoundly beautiful moment that signifies the completion of the project and the experience. Our greatest hope is that even just a fleeting moment on this record resonates with you deeply enough to draw you closer to an authentic and better life.

The result is a magnificent collection of jewels that shine like stars in the southern skies. An added synth layer and a willingness to experiment with nuanced sounds and arrangements has created something that is exciting and unique.

Opening track ‘Tell You All The Time’ is incontrovertible proof that this is one of the most exciting bands coming out of the great southern land. It continues the development of the band beyond the stridency of punk into something more subtle – a synth-based glam stomp with a pulsing beat and a sneer. Of course the thing that makes A. Swayze and the Ghosts so special remains intact: the swagger with a swing wider than the gait of a sailing ship caught in stormy seas.

Swayze’s voice is filled with insolence and poise, urgent and expressive as he sings of his experiences isolated during the pandemic that had an ultimately positive effect:

I felt like we were becoming a product, controlled, and I was no longer enjoying the fast booze and drug-fuelled lifestyle we had created. It wasn’t long after that I quit drinking and was forced to recluse while the world shut down. I found some peace and quiet and learned that was what I needed to function and be happy and experience love.

The expression is stark and lyrical:

Just fed up
With having constant company
Now I sit alone
All messed up but I feel at home
Free yourself
So beautiful
Come together hand in hand
Be in love and feel out of control

It is pulse quickening stuff:

‘Anthropology’ sets off with a frenetic pace with a nod to The Clash, The Specials and an element of the more contemporary Fontaines D.C. perhaps, with a rousing pop chorus and a hint of a sneer. It’s barbed-wire pop of the highest order.

‘He Is Dead’ confirms that the band’s palette is filled with many colours as they explore new territories beyond their punk origins – a dash of new wave post punk pizazz layered on top of a dead pan delivery and threaded with a sense of humour. The band has a swagger, a confidence and an attitude – the song is a cathartic blast of studied cool.

‘He Is Dead’ wrestles with ideas of false idols, consumerism, a fear of the future and questioning ideals held in the past. While writing ‘He Is Dead’ the band’s frontman Andrew Swayze abandoned his previous self-described habit of overthinking, signifying a newfound lyrical freedom that echoes the ethos of the firts single off the album, ‘Cool Cucumber’. Swayze says of the single:

The lyrics for ‘He Is Dead’ came to me like a bolt from the heavens. I was playing around with a loop I made from one of Ben’s demos that had a guitar progression on top of a LinnDrum groove. I hit record and the entire first verse came out immediately – that’s often how I write lyrics: ad-lib and allow whatever melodies and words bubble out of my subconscious. It’s only recently that I’ve allowed myself to keep them rather than overthink it. Interestingly, I’ve found that the meaning of these ramblings often becomes apparent later on in the process. There’s something mystical about that to me.”

Swayze is an enigmatic performer – mesmerising in his commitment and stage presence – and his delivery is, as ever, studied and observant, distant and poised as his vocals coasts across the wall of blazing buzz-saw instruments and – let’s be honest – indelible pop melodies.

The accompanying video, starring Cora the dog was filmed and edited by Swayze and is a surreal performance of a pooch with an animated tongue on a TV watched by the band like some episode of Goggle-box. Swayze says:

We shot the music video in a couple of hours before we had to arrive at a soundcheck. It was still light out, so we had to board up every window in my rental, and Cora kept wandering into the shots as we filmed ourselves watching television. The process was actually quite meditative: sitting in silence watching the same nonsense scenes over and over. I suppose that’s exactly what a lot of us spend our time doing throughout our lives, but without the meditation and without noticing.

This video perfectly encapsulates the band’s insouciant attitude laced with a sense of absurdism:

The percussive rumble of ‘Easy Come’ harks back to an earlier more brutal punk sound, a shouty delivery delivered at a pace that would shake the hardiest of us, a veritable wall of eviscerating sound with a thundering insistent bass with the inbuilt humour of Swayze telling himself to calm down in an increasingly frantic delivery.

‘Sick Kinda World’ provides another splash of colour with its electronic-infused background singing, the motorik beat and a wildly psychedelic fairground synth that wails like a Tasmanian Devil in the wilderness, with a vice-like grip in the jaws that won’t let go. This more than anything showcases the band’s exciting and innovative approach; funky, louche, angular, jugular.

The punchy glam rock shimmer continues in ‘Cool Cucumber’ – a subtle approach to the thunder but with as much of a sonic attack as ever. It’s not so much abrasive punk but more of an angular almost funky post punk track that quickens the pulse with a psychedelic hue and twists and turns with its various movements and shades.

Swayze says of the track:

This song represents our break from people’s expectations, embracing a diverse sound that transcends previous releases. We intentionally moved away from familiar genres and attitudes, signalling our growth and evolution as artists.

The lyrics are insouciant and cool, with an Iggy Pop/The Hives/Bowie sense of swagger and an old school Ed Kuepper vibe:

Some people
They tell me that I am a pretty cool banana
(Oh yeah, what do they say?)
They’re saying anything just so I will stick around for a while
(Micro-physical, let’s not be too critical)
And some others, they need to feel love or they want you to save ’em
But I tip-toe away just to save dancing a boring ballet

The clip is an hilarious pastiche of some very daggy dancing, delivered with the utmost seriousness and sense of style:

This is the sound of a band at their very best.

In ‘Others Exist’ A. Swayze & The Ghosts’ enter in to a Magazine-echoing new wave world of indie pop – a coasting melodic expansive song that combines melody and an anthemic majesty, with Swayze crooning like a lounge room entertainer. Subtle and almost melancholic: it’s yet another example of the kaleidoscope of sounds the band has explored and delivered with aplomb.

The driving insistent bass in ‘Friends’ heralds a return to a vein-popping punky style with the shouty choruses and sneering attitude, framed with wild feedback and sense of urgency. Swayze sounds deliciously unhinged as if in a straight jacket, railing against the vicissitudes of life.

In contrast, ‘Puppy Baby’ is the closes the band gets to a Bowie-esque theatricality: stately and enigmatic with arching guitars that evokes memories of some new wave video set in a gothic castle replete with a heavy fog, wild hair and thousand-yard stares in heavy overcoats. Swayze’s vocal are almost operatic, majestic before the track fades out with Swayze’s vocoder vocals pleading for a puppy as if to undercut the pomp and the glamour. Brilliant.

Final track ‘Before I Left’ leaves us glowing with another rampant anthemic pop delight with a direct genetic link to The Saints and yet veers towards the end into something that would be comfortable in a Kraftwerk setlist: a magnificent sonic journey that leave you buzzing.

In ‘Let’s Live A Life Better Than This’ A. Swayze and the Ghosts have found a vital voice that brings to the fore their artistry and creativity: an endless horizon that suggests growth and expansion into something bigger than their constituent parts. This album is an absolute triumph: cathartic, expressive, subtle yet antithetically delivered with a sledge hammer brute force. They join fellow compatriots like Johnny Hunter (now based in the UK), Coldwave and Charvez Cartel producing some of the most exciting post punk music around.

The album is out on Friday (25 October 2024) and can be pre-ordered here.

Tell You All The Time
Anthropology
He Is Dead
Easy Come
Sick Kinda WRLD
Cool Cucumber
Others Exist
Friends
Puppy, Baby
Before I Left

A. Swayze & The Ghosts have just had a number of gigs at the Sydney SXSW and embark on a wider tour – details below.

Fri 15 Nov – The Curtin – Wurundjeri Country, Naarm/Melb VIC*
Fri 22 Nov – The Grand Poobah – palawa Country, nipaluna/Hobart TAS*
Sun 24 Nov – Crowbar – Gadigal Country, Eora/Syd NSW*
Thu 12 Dec – Beach Hotel – Arakwal Country, Cavanbah/Byron Bay NSW*
Fri 13 Dec – Felon’s Barrell Hall – Turrbal Country, Meanjin/Bris QLD*
Sat 14 Dec – Sol Bar – Kabi Kabi Country/Maroochydore QLD*
*official album tour date

Feature Photograph: Rick Clifford