More People Than Teeth is the debut album from South London folk-punk band The Early Swerve, pairing infectious melodies, acoustic instrumentation, violin, and rich backing harmonic layers with dark humor and distinctly British storytelling. Across twelve tracks, vivid character studies, gritty relationship portraits, and memorable arrangements balance sing-along appeal with an offbeat lyrical edge.
“Past The Post” kicks off the album with style and charisma, moving from brisk acoustic strums and melancholic strings to a piano-set lead narration. “Your saloon doors, on hallway floors, the open jaws, the varnished claws,” Dave Mackinnon’s delivery lets out with accompanied visceral lyrical prowess, complemented thereafter by wordless backing harmonies, lending a haunting quality. The call-and-response performance patterns in the track’s second half are particularly gripping, with laments of how “I’ve lost my youth” and sanity doing well in setting the scene for an album that ventures through dark humor and gritty, British lived-in accounts of life with surly characters and locales.
Quality songwriting is abound throughout. “Literary Reference” gives off black midi vibes in its mixture of art-folk textures and sensual lyricism, exploring infatuation, sex, and promiscuity in the modern age, where sending “the pictures to your mates” is the norm for some. Serene harmonic layers, heartrending strings, and balmy guitars bolster enjoyably. Elsewhere, “Horrible People” returns to a catchier energy, where pulsing guitars and ardent strings contrast acts of petty malice against moments of unexpected, lingering tenderness. Violin and guitar combine for a particularly riveting segment as the two-minute turn approaches, into the memorable “all the rolling round the floor / with the geezers on the door” line. Full of personality and memorable narrations amidst melodic productions, More People Than Teeth is a stirring full-length success The Early Swerve.
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“Past The Post” and other tracks featured this month can be streamed on the updating Obscure Sound’s ‘Emerging Singles’ Spotify playlist.
We discovered this release via MusoSoup.
