A band named Answerman should have a proper retort to every question posed. On the Boston rock quartet’s latest EP, SWYM, out today with a record release party Friday night at the Middle East in Cambridge, the answer depends on the question. And the answer may or may not be the one you are looking for.
“We decided to call it SWYM after noticing that the title to one of the songs, “Say What You Mean,” contained the acronym SWYM,” the band writes. “But it also speaks to the idea of jumping into life with everything you got and accepting the good along with the bad and just swimming right the hell through it all… love, pain, loss, dependence, joy. You stop once in a while…kick your feet, look around, smile or cry and keep going.”
There’s also a more bruising meaning behind the collection.
“Musically, we wanted to highlight some of the more cathartic punk songs we’ve been playing out with this past year,” they add. “[Drummer] Tommy [Keddy] calls them ‘Fuck you’ songs.”
The songs weave together elements of punk, dream-pop, bits of Americana, and some good old-fashioned Feelies-inspired rock and roll mixed in here and there, and you can digest the entire thing via the Answerman Bandcamp page linked below. Additional details on their Friday night gig in Cambridge below, a WEMF affair, in flyer form.
