Swivel is Brendan Regan's debut solo album that follows on from a series of ep's since he switched from being a drummer to being a guitar playing Celtic inspired folksinger. The album was recorded at Her Car Studio's in Seattle with Colin J Nelson producing and playing several instruments, alongside Rebecca Lomnicky, Skyler Mehal, Andrew Rudd, Dan Tyack, Kate Olsen and guest vocalist Tekla Waterfield.
The A-side opens with the slow atmospheric Trigger Town, not in a gunslinger way, the Town triggers Brendan's anxiety for how he feels tied to his old hometown, the evocative percussion with Deft guitar woven through it feeding his fears and anxieties.
Have No Reserve has a bucolic Irish feel to the reflections on how things ended up this way.
Little Flame is a gentle air as everything's going wrong, the feelings of isolation increase among the rubble of normal life. Plangent guitars gently sooth your frayed nerves as you battle for survival.
Over Promises is a duet with Tekla Waterfield on a love gone wrong song of slow careful intensity, as she replies to all those promises pledged against the slide guitar in the sparse instrumentation with the acoustic guitar slowly coming to the foreground making the point with gentle force.
The B-side opens with a solo fiddle intro to Have You Seen Wings? no they got lost in Lagos, Oh not those Wings, this is a redolent downbeat song full of longing to be able to go across the ocean once more, back to the loving arms of your own personal angel, cocooning you in her nest once more.
Sit Right Down take in the madness that surrounds us as this gently lilting country tune allows you space to reflect on life's inequalities, all of which might be improved by a sit In.
Opus Girl is for a girl who is worthy of inspiring Brendan's Magnus Opus rather than an adherent of Opus Dei, the piano and picked acoustic guitar accentuate the ways she inspires Brendan.
The album closes with People I Won't Leave Behind an upbeat jaunty reflection on all the fallen during the last couple of years that he keeps with him, this has a most unusual structure that helps add layers of feeling and meaning as the electric guitar soars away.
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