Sway is the second studio album by American

alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...

band

Whirr Whirr is a shoegaze band from the San Francisco Bay Area. The group formed in 2010, originally as Whirl, but had to legally change its name after a woman performing acoustic covers of Black Sabbath songs trademarked the name and threatened a laws ...

, released on September 23, 2014 by

Graveface Records Graveface Records is an American independent record label from Savannah, Georgia, solely owned and operated by Ryan Graveface (who plays in the groups Black Moth Super Rainbow, Dreamend, the Marshmallow Ghosts and the Casket Girls). He has rele ...

. The album marked the departure of previous lead singer Alexandra Morte, as well as the first release with Devin Nunes who replaced Sergio Miranda on drums. It was produced by

Jack Shirley Jack Shirley is a Grammy Award nominated American record producer, audio engineer and musician. He is known for his analog driven aesthetic, and work with eclectic artists, including Deafheaven, whose 2013 sophomore album ''Sunbather'' received wi ...

Release and reception

On July 11, 2014, the band released the song "Mumble" on

SoundCloud SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming se ...

as a preview of the new album. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, Sway received an average score of 74, based on six reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". Tim Sendra of

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

noted that ''Sways sound had taken a large influence from Nick Bassett's presence, "inch ngthem closer to the harder side of the

shoegaze Shoegaze (originally called shoegazing and sometimes conflated with "dream pop") is a subgenre of indie and alternative rock characterized by its ethereal mixture of obscured vocals, guitar distortion and effects, feedback, and overwhelming volu ...

revival (right next to Bassett's other band, Nothing, in fact)". He gave the album 4 out of 5 stars and finalized his review by saying that "''Sway'' is an album that would measure up to almost any album made by the first wave of shoegazers". Punknews.org gave the album 3.5 out of 5 stars; while generally praising the album, the reviewer wished that Whirr would "experiment even more and toy with new music to give a bit more insight as to where the road leads", and also noted that "some tracks are a tad too long and sometimes, it drags".

Track listing

Personnel

;Whirr *Nick Bassett –

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

*Joseph Bautista –

*Devin Nunes –

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

*Loren Riviera –

lead vocals The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of t ...

*Eddie Salgado –

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

;Other personnel *

–

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...

References

{{Authority control Whirr (band) albums 2014 albums Shoegazing albums by American artists Albums produced by Jack Shirley