I’ve long been fond of this 1993 album by Swervedriver, a potent alternative rock band from Oxford. I have the Canadian release on cassette tape, which has an additional song, “Never Lose That Feeling/Never Learn”, not available on the U.K. original. Swervedriver was an excellent band, absorbing influences at first from raw bands like Iggy and the Stooges, and slowly acquiring a denser “alternative” texture without losing any aggressiveness. Unlike Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, and other bands of that general zeitgeist, Swervedriver never found a satisfactory relationship with a record company, or a broad audience. But Mezcal Head stands up very well after twenty years. “Duel”, the only song to get a video and significant airplay, is by no means the only good track on the album. I prefer “Last Train To Satansville” and the jazz-like “Never Learn”. The vocals are more or less impossible to make out, and float over the thick instrumental sound like a ping pong ball on a tsunami, but that was par for the course at the time.
