Edinburgh's swim school on their new EP

Edinburgh band swim school are ready for the future to begin. Resolute in the face of adversity, there's a sense of exuberance in speaking to them via Zoom on a foggy Monday morning. At the time of our call they haven't played a live show in almost 18 months, frequently unable to even play in the same room and have been waiting patiently to release new music. But despite their decidedly dark lyrical bent (more on which later), they're practically giddy in their excitement to get out and make good on the initial waves of promise they rode upon their arrival on the scene.

“This does feel like the start of swim school – we had an amazing first year, but so much has changed over lockdown that it does feel like the start of a new band,” frontperson Alice Johnson beams, laser-focused. One of the most prominent changes is the introduction of Billy McMahon on drums, adding a more bombastic edge to their sound. His first show with the band is just over a week after our chat, at Latitude Festival no less: "First English festival, first show with Billy, first time playing a lot of songs live... to go from no live music for 18 months, to seeing so much live music; it's gonna be incredible.”

The band first gained prominence with Sway; a track full of Cure-esque vocal tics, often described as “floaty”, earning likenesses to dream and indie-pop, and bands like Pale Waves, Foals and Wolf Alice. The latter is the real clue to what you're likely to find with swim school – the band are big fans, with Johnson admitting to poring over new lyrics, looking for meaning like an amateur sleuth – especially in the heavier sound of their new EP, making sense of it all.

Everything You Wanted is the only one that's survived from the band's early period, the EP's other four all being recorded post-lockdown. Each song is gleaned from a particular event and its resultant fallout on the mental health of those involved, states Johnson. Though these supposedly include “sad, happy and angry” songs, the middle quality is most often lacking. Outside, a peak on an EP that's exclusively constructed of them, “is definitely the happiest of the lot...but there's an angry aspect to it, especially the guitar parts,” admits Johnson when pushed to find a happy song.

It deals with toxic people and how they can wear down your mental resilience, but also the catharsis that comes when you can shake free of them and focus on yourself. As the final track on the EP, it brings things to a neat moment of closure – “it's actually the last song we play live, so the closure aspect totally makes sense (I just realised that)” McMahon laughs, while Johnson gives a good-natured eye roll.

Elsewhere, lyrical pick-me-ups are less abundant; Let Me Inside Your Head basks in moody, reverby guitars, with a touch of Karen O about the vocals, but there's more desperation than detachment amid this 80s-imbued sonic palette. Not being able to understand or take away another's pain is the theme here, with all the associated helplessness.

Everything You Wanted is one of the darkest songs, trapped in the mire of blaming yourself after a loss, and the cyclical self-flagellation that comes with your own unwitting self-importance in such a situation. Needless to say, this isn't a surface-level exploration, but a deep dive into the psyche, a call to tell you that you aren't alone, which Johnson views as the shining beacon it can be: “We never got educated on mental health in high school, for me it was always music and lyrics that helped. Not to sound totally cringey, but music's always been there for me.”

Anyway is the most well-formed distillation of the band's musical and lyrical interests, hence its special place in the band's heart, as Johnson explains. “Even though it's a sad song, lyrically, it's quite upbeat, sonically – which describes mental health really nicely as it's showing how the exterior can show one thing, while something totally different is happening inside.”

With a driving guitar line and commanding drums, the song presents a confident front – something for more passive fans – but there's a vulnerability underneath in the lyrical intrigue; something for the obsessives. McMahon remembers “thinking that this'll be a song for people chanting at a festival, hugging each other. I've never thought about it being dark. I'm thinking it's gonna be a great time and poor Alice is onstage breaking her heart.”

The confidence to be playing to chanting festival crowds is certainly not misplaced, and if you weren't lucky enough to see them at Latitude, there will, fingers crossed, be ample opportunities in the coming months.

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making sense of it all is self-released on 20 Aug
swim school play King Tut's, Glasgow, 21 Aug; Hidden Door, Granton Gasworks, Edinburgh, 16 Sep