{"product_id":"pre-post-truth","title":"Pre-Post-Truth","description":"\u003cp\u003eSometimes described as an indie supergroup, Swansea Sound are Hue Williams (ex-The Pooh Sticks), Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey (Heavenly), Bob Collins (The Dentists) and Ian Button (Death In Vegas, Railcard). \u003cem\u003e Pre-post-truth\u003c\/em\u003e is their third album. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePre-post-truth \u003c\/em\u003esees Swansea Sound expand their musical ambition and broaden their lyrical targets. This album is loud and it’s outspoken, but it’s also energetic, emotional and very witty.  There’s an awareness of impotence too: the songs are often self-mocking, asking if it’s even possible to make subversive statements in a world where the communication channels are all owned by the tech-bros themselves.   \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Grease That Oils the Wheels, \u003c\/i\u003ea runaway train of a song, Amelia and Hue sing three duets: in the first part, they’re a young couple struggling to make ends meet in a gig economy dominated by Uber and Deliveroo; in the second they are in a middle class band, arguing how much money they should spend on online influencers to achieve digital fame, and in the third they are a wealthy political couple (think Nick Clegg and his wife) who’ve traded in their political influence to secure lucrative jobs advising big-tech companies.  The one thing all three pairs have in common is that they are totally expendable: they are merely the grease that oils the wheels.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e20mph, \u003c\/i\u003emusically more akin to Wire or The Ruts, presents a tech-bro who is surprised how easy it is to stir his British followers up into a frenzy of fascistic rage – ‘\u003ci\u003eI thought they’d go for trans\/but no, it’s speeding bans’.  \u003c\/i\u003eThe choruses feature the fired-up mob, chanting the song title as they head out to destroy another speed camera and replace it with a Union Jack.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOther tracks come at the same theme from different angles: the poignant, chiming Flamin Groovies-like \u003ci\u003eOn Our Own \u003c\/i\u003etraces the history of a building and the people who inhabited it: once upon a time it was a small venue where the band first played; in the 80s it was demolished to make way for an office block, giving employment to the white collar working class (‘\u003ci\u003ethe work was dull but paid enough’\u003c\/i\u003e), and now the building lies empty: all those clerical jobs have been sucked up by AI.  The friends who played and worked together don’t hang out any more because they are all stuck at home, doom-scrolling.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut there’s no point getting nostalgic.  As the title of the album suggests, the pre-post-truth era of innocence is long-gone, if it existed at all. The eerie psych pop of \u003ci\u003eThat Life \u003c\/i\u003esees the band immersed in a haze of memory, struggling to access some Utopian space that may be a pre-tech world, or may be childhood – it’s hard to separate the two.  \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEither way, it has disappeared.  And, as \u003ci\u003eMean To Be Mean \u003c\/i\u003ereminds us, it wasn’t that great in the past anyway: a world dominated by well-paid opinion-formers, mostly male, who had the power to police our culture.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Skep Wax Records","offers":[{"title":"LP - Clear \/ Signed \/ Rough Trade Exclusive","offer_id":58234353320267,"sku":"R9777-0299","price":-0.01,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP - Turquoise","offer_id":58235216003403,"sku":"R9777-9245","price":29.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":58235216036171,"sku":"R9777-6323","price":14.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/img-a85bb78d-c74a-45bb-93e0-f716e57f1cc8.jpg?v=1787506463","url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/fr\/products\/pre-post-truth","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}