Swapmeet excel at the alt-rock playbook on Mount Zero

This is a group who’ve thoroughly honed their artistry in the quiet pockets of Adelaide, where, from a global perspective, might be the last place where Australia’s next biggest band comes from. Graduating from a hidden secret in their hometown, the synergy they unleash on stages to their devoted audiences has grown with fiery passion. Whether concertgoers are smushed shoulder-to-shoulder in a tiny Melbourne pub or they’re in the United States and Europe, Swapmeet’s music goes down with the same fervent, energetic embrace.

The four-piece of high school friends – Venus O’Broin, Maxwell Elphick, Jack Medlyn, and Joshua Doherty – are the whole lot, all multi-instrumentalists contributing to songwriting and thrillingly trading vocal duties. If their gentle 2024 Oxalis EP was a precious locket among its few discoverers, Mount Zero’s grandeur enlarges it as something for everybody. The familiar combination of jangle pop, shoegaze, and college radio warrants obvious comparisons to Pavement and Sonic Youth, given that much of the record shares the lasting immediate resonance of the latter’s late-career hit “Incinerate”. Yet they also sound like their Winspear labelmates, and share the storytelling prowess of Wednesday, Pinegrove, and Big Thief.

The environment is also important – Mount Zero is a mountain peak at Victoria’s Grampians National Park, which they’ve never visited, and the eponymous record came together at a beach house in South Australia’s Port Noarlunga. The ocean’s openness in view and imagining the captivating summit both form a recipe for aspiration. Swapmeet succeed at the push-and-pull between sparsity and maximalism, filling their songs with intricate layers that gradually go elsewhere. The title track “Mount Zero” starts as a cosy folk-rock sway, but ends energised with blown-out electric riffs and digi-pop collaging. “Seeds” continually teeters on falling apart, while “Personal (Don’t Take It)” doubles down on the acoustic folk with aching strings that make its crunchy conclusion more fragile.

The biggest draw of Mount Zero is its hooks for days. That alone makes Swapmeet’s genre compartmentalisation redundant; they’re probably sick of the labels thrown at them. A song like “I Know!” is equally restless and controlled – its magnetic, raucous riffs that complement O’Broin’s careful deadpan are a beautiful language illustrating the relatable, disorienting shift from adolescence to adulthood – but for sounding so lived in, it’s astonishing that it’s coming from a new band. “Bonny” is similar, with their guitars and voices singing together. “2 C U” is in the upper echelon of songs about infatuation; the heightening, blistering chords match their narration about trying to quell the feverish anticipation before seeing that significant someone. “My Heart Breaks II” travels in many directions just as young adulthood does – at times intimately, others more assured, ultimately ending unresolved. The four close friends have found themselves entering a future so bright and open-ended that their lofty ambition for Swapmeet will only rise.