Swim Deep’s evolution has been fascinating to watch. Since forming in 2011, the British indie band have zigged and zagged through different shades of alternative music, taking in everything from the dreamy indie-pop of 2013 debut ‘Where The Heaven Are We’ and the synth-led psych wigout of follow-up ‘Mothers’, to third album ‘Emerald Classics’’ ‘90s dance-pop leaning sounds. Another left turn landed in 2024, with ‘There’s A Big Star Outside’ – rich, warm, introspective alt-rock that twinkled and swelled.

Two years on from that last record, Swim Deep – frontman Austin “Ozzy” Williams, keyboardist James Balmont, bassist Cavan McCarthy, guitarist JJ Buchanan and drummer Thomas Fiquet – are breaking the habit of a lifetime. Instead of bounding on to the next sonic frontier, on ‘Hum’ they’ve reunited with producer Bill Ryder-Jones, who helmed ‘…Big Star…’, and buried themselves deeper in the sounds of that album.

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Lyrically, too, ‘Hum’ is a continuation of its predecessor, picking up where that record left off in the personal stories from Williams’ life. Where we last heard him preparing for impending fatherhood, he marvels at the existence of his daughter on ‘You, Me & Mary’, telling her in one beautiful, awe-stricken moment, “I won’t ever get used to you, my baby, my friend”. That sense of family – what it means to guide a child through life, the bonds we build with those we choose to go through life with, the loss of the generations before us – drives this album forward, each song full of gratitude and grace.

On the heady alt-rock of ‘Pieces Of You’, Williams contends with mortality, asking a recently departed family member what lies on the other side. “Do you walk into a place where time and space takes a break from it all?” he muses over a sparkling, soaring tapestry....