Tennis encapsulates the good, the bad and the ugly of true love on ‘Swimmer’

Tennis

Swimmer

Mutually Detrimental· February 14, 2020

With their fifth studio album Swimmer, husband and wife duo Tennis paint a picture that truly encapsulates what exactly “true love” is — the good, the bad, and the ugly. Though the album in its entirety is generally upbeat, the overall motif is almost macabre in nature. Immediately after the success of their last album Yours Conditionally, the couple was faced with a series of difficulties and tragedies in their personal lives that ultimately influenced the ethos of Swimmer, and in turn, reinforced the strength of their relationship. Being hospitalized from the flu and a seizure and losing parents are inherently heavy realities; however, Swimmer decides to look at them from the perspective of unrelenting and everlasting love.

The album begins with the ultimate end, a chilling ballad entitled “I’ll Haunt You.” The song introduces the sparse instrumentation, soft vocals from frontwoman Alaina Moore, and overarching theme of the album itself. It is an ode to growing older, starting a new chapter and ultimately overcoming newfound challenges. This tenderness is immediately juxtaposed by the contained rage of the album’s second single, “Need Your Love.” Over the course of nearly four minutes, Moore deftly and effortlessly switches tempos multiple times to convey an undercurrent of anger that is oftentimes found in relationships. Accompanied by not much more than a drum machine and keys, Moore sings of the inescapability of love and the frustrations that come with it.

The true heart of the album begins halfway through the relatively brief album with the lead single “Runner.” Moore’s soft soprano vocals soar over glittering synths, grooving basslines and galloping drum machine beats as she invokes beautiful biblical imagery. As the title implies, Tennis is running towards the ultimate end and refusing to look back. Mortality is the soul of the album and the duo addresses it in three parts. First, “Echoes” introduces this concept by way of beachy guitars with a vintage flair. The titular “Swimmer” is the heaviest song on the album, and rightfully so, because it directly confronts the burial of Patrick Riley’s father at sea. While the previous song introduced death as a concept, “Swimmer” cements it as a reality and natural fact of life. “Tender as a Tomb” returns to the previously-introduced beachy rock vibe and closes out the trilogy. In the aftermath of significant loss, Moore bravely and repetitively exclaims “Oh, I live for you.”

The closing track, “Matrimony II,” serves as an epilogue to their earlier track “Matrimony” from Yours Conditionally. Unlike its predecessor, this song isn’t a doe-eyed love song, but instead a song of devotion. The couple undoubtedly grew a lot over the course of three short years and this song truly exemplifies that. The duo relies upon minimal instrumentals that accentuate the punchy, pulsating chorus. Here, Moore delivers the most poignant lines of the album: “I can’t go on living with a spark / That’s only flickering / I only want that tenderness / With every moment left to give, oh.” This isn’t a song about the act of matrimony, but instead the eternal exchange of intimacy and fidelity between two partners. Moore is singing about the love of her life, and her parting words on the album are “I’ll never be the same.”

Swimmer details a relationship that hopeless romantics would find enviable. Though the album may not be fully relatable to some of Tennis’ younger audiences, it is something for young romantics to aspire to. In a world full of dating apps and casual flings, devotion and matrimony seem incredibly out of reach. Tennis puts it all on the table and exposes love for what it really is: both finite and infinite, but ultimately true. Instead of shying away from death, the duo chooses to embrace it and romanticize it in a way that is still tactful and sincere. After garnering a decent amount of traction from their previous album, Swimmer establishes Tennis as a force to be reckoned with. The album contends that though we are all constantly trudging towards the inevitable end, there is still value in loving, living, and creating while we still can. The marriage between Moore and Riley continues to stay afloat and subsequently, so does Tennis. And as Moore so aptly put it in “Echoes,” it “looks like they won’t be going down stoically.”