RUNNER-UP Album of the Week - "A Trip to Marineville"

Often times the line between post-punk and punk is blurred, especially in the late 70s, early, early 80s. There's often a dichotomy drawn between post-punk bands' punk and post-punk periods and I think it's a meaningless distinction.

Swell Maps is one band that you might be tempted into dividing in this manner but the straying away from purely political themes, variable tempos, and the lack of minimalism make this a band that was post-punk from the release of their first LP.

Their first studio album (one of only two) is colored by lots of bar-chords, sounding at times very orthodox punk. But the song lengths should indicate that though they'd been together since 1972 the band had moved beyond first-wave. The music contains lots of droning Velvet Underground noise-making which adds a psych dimension but gets tiresome after a while. Maps use this method both to their credit and to their detriment on "A Trip [. . .]".

On tracks like "My Little Shops" the band goes completely avant-garde, abandoning any quality of punk and Kevin Godrey sings a creepy little jingle over jangling, dissonant guitars. It's a very short track but a testament to how conceptual the album is and sometimes how pretentious it can be. "Ripped and Torn", which can be heard on the bonus-track edition, is another example of this.

Swell Maps never went on to make anything fantastic but this album has moments where the band successfully reincorporates certain lost parts of first-wave punk back into post-punk like on "Another Song" and "Harmony in your Bathroom". This fusion of first-wave and post-punk is what makes some Maps songs a valuable listen.