“I really don’t want to let you out here, sir. Are you sure you have the right address?”
It was the summer of 2023, and NME’s Uber driver had made it clear that we were in a part of Atlanta where even taxi drivers feared to tread. But yes, we were indeed in the right place. This street – full of boarded-up businesses and empty lots – was where Sword II, Atlanta’s steely merchants of phantasmagoric post-punk, had chosen to host their record release show for their debut album, ‘Spirit World Tour’. And now that we were so close, there was zero chance of retreat. So against the driver’s advice, we hopped out of the car and scurried toward our destination – careful to avoid the couple of unaccompanied, marauding pitbulls along the way.
That night, the trio of multi-instrumentalists who comprise Sword II – Travis Arnold (27), Certain Zuko (26), and Mari González (27) – transformed their rehearsal space into a DIY venue. They did it all themselves, from running sound to pouring drinks, and the result was less a gig than a gathering and a statement of purpose: a glimpse of Atlanta’s best up-and-coming band inviting you into their inner circle.
Asked to explain their thinking for that extraordinary show now – over two years later in 2025 – Arnold doesn’t hesitate: “It was important to us to be able to invite people into our world, to understand the space we had been creating in.”
In many ways, that idea describes the ethos of Sword II. They not only strive to inhabit a world that is uniquely theirs with their music but also to establish a much deeper and more profound connection with their fans through curated DIY experiences. Zuko knows the power of music communities firsthand, having hosted many shows at her parents’ house as a teenager. “All of our lives changed so much because of the bands we saw as kids, and we hope we can be that band one day for someone else,” she says, then, only slightly in jest, adds: “We want to have a psycho-cult of fans.”
That cult may not be as far off as they think. Much has happened since that debut album release show. They now have a manager and a booking agent and have toured far beyond Atlanta, opening for the likes of Beach Fossils and Feeble Little Horse. Most importantly, they have a dazzling new album out on November 14 called ‘Electric Hour’, backed by a new offshoot of Partisan Records called section1.
Yet despite the new infrastructure, Sword II still operate on the fringes. Like their EP from 2020, ‘Between II Gardens’, and ‘Spirit World Tour’, ‘Electric Hour’ was made entirely in a studio of their own design, this one erected in the basement of an old home they rented and lived in for the full year they spent making it. While that might suggest a certain level of comfort, Zuko claims the experience was anything but cosy: “The electrical wiring was ancient and it was so damp [in the house] that we were constantly getting shocked.”
The band also wound up frying their hard drive early on, in a situation eerily reminiscent of the sessions for their first album, when Zuko accidentally dropped the hard drive containing the full record and almost lost it forever. Thankfully, this time, she didn’t have sell the rights to one of her high school band’s albums to come up with $2,000 to recover damaged files.
It turns out the biggest change for Sword II this time is the music itself. While the band’s EP and first album were strongly influenced by their early days of “taking molly and going to raves” in downtown Atlanta, ‘Electric Hour’ pulls back on the harder-edged aggression and horror-scapes that characterised those records to reveal a lush, radiant interior. Lead single ‘Even If It’s Just a Dream’ is tender, where their past work was abrasive: acoustic strums and falling piano lines cradle Gonzalez’s lullaby-like vocal.
As the first song completed for the album, ‘…Dream’ also served as something of a signpost for the band, giving them a new way to articulate their ideas that felt radical yet true to their present feeling. “On our earlier albums, we were so inspired by those illegal raves and the social movements like the George Floyd uprising and Stop Cop City,” says Zuko.
“And we still are, but I think we realised that there’s only so much fighting and aggression you can handle before you need something soothing. You know, flowers and butterflies – we all actually need that.”
Not that the band has abandoned confrontation. Far from it. But ‘Electric Hour’ finds them exploring ideas – political and otherwise – with more nuance and confidence and sometimes finding that the most effective critique might be to revel in the absurdity of the situation. ‘Passionate Nun’ began from a place of anger over the trans bathroom ban bills that swept through certain states in the middle of the last decade, making it illegal for transgender individuals to use bathrooms that matched their gender identity.
“All of our lives changed so much because of the bands we saw as kids, and we hope we can be that band one day for someone else” – Certain Zuko
But rather than direct sloganeering, the band instead cloaks their outrage in the story of a steamy love affair between two lesbians who are more than OK sharing a locker room together. “When you feel attraction at that age, there is this crazy devotion that is almost religious,” says Gonzalez. The result is part sacred, part profane – provocation as both weapon and wink.
Sword II thrive in that tension: deeply political but never predictable, heavy but not joyless, DIY yet ambitious. As their audience grows, they’re determined to hold onto the imagination at the heart of what they do. “Even if we get much bigger, we still want to do DIY shows and take risks with the types of shows we play in general,” says Zuko. “But more important to us is preserving the idea of Sword II. That’s something everyone can take into the world with them, no matter where they are.”
Sword II’s ‘Electric Hour’ is out on November 14 via section1