Innovation can sometimes materialise as a sleight of hand trick. We often think of innovative art as some bold, audacious show-stopper or a head-spinningly avant-garde experiment, but it can just easily take the form of a deft work of magic whose singular brilliance incrementally dawns on you. Cultural progression is a marathon not a sprint; a gradual development that needs resonant and endearing qualities as much as it does unorthodox and iconoclastic forms. Sword II’s ‘Electric Hour’ is a prime example of approachable art that intuitively pushes against its own apparent boundaries.
- READ MORE: Sword II are in a world of their own
The Atlanta trio’s gently radical second album is a warm, emotionally-resonant brand of colourful indie rock – oscillating between dream pop, psych and even hardcore – that’s flecked with odd, engaging splashes of imagination. Recorded in a rundown building so damp the band found themselves being frequently electrocuted by their own equipment, these 10 lush new tracks feel as though they’ve been charged, Frankenstein-like, with some otherworldly but also deeply human life force.
Despite its copious gentle textures and seemingly effortless vocal melodies (shared, in tellingly egalitarian fashion, by all three members), an uneasy current courses just beneath the gleaming surface of ‘Electric Hour’. Recalling its artwork, which foregrounds a pastoral utopia with a dystopic cityscape looming in the background, these 10 tracks adopt a wearily rebellious tone that feels in tune with the sense of unease many people feel in today’s unpredictable world. The warped emo anthem ‘Halogen’ makes this feeling explicit: “You’re so puzzled / Trying to believe in something / On your own”.
Sword II have previously told NME about their radical influences and lyrics like “maybe their world’s darker than ours” are explicit reminders of their belief that a better world is possible. This manifests on ‘Electric Hour’ via a succession of novel, progressive ideas; see the bell that starts and ends ‘Passionate Nun’ or the unexpected mid-song pick scrape on ‘Gun You Hold’. But there’s also some striking macro experiments like the blissed-out punk of ‘Who’s Giving You Love’ (a mode that band should explore further) and album highlight ‘Even If It’s Just A Dream’, whose effervescent, energetic psych-gaze ascends to a climax that truly feels like the trio arriving at a transcendent musical utopia.
Some revolutions happen overnight, others take their time, gradually seeping into the world via infiltration and assimilation. This is Sword II’s modus operandi. ‘Electric Hour’ is a breezy, ultra-melodic (the chorus of ‘Sugarcane’ will stick in your head like bubblegum on a shoe) indie album, but also as a sharp portrayal of a very contemporary feeling of head-scrambled yearning. Engaging with the world today is to flick between terror and joy, unease and bliss with rapidfire abandon. ‘Electric Hour’ gets this and attempts to harness our hopes and build a wondrous, lucid world free from all this mayhem.
Details
- Record label: section1
- Release date: November 14, 2025