Sharkswimmer Drop "Course Correcting" Video, Finishing One of the Year's Best Rock EPs

[Credit: Justin Buschard]

There's a version of the current guitar music renaissance that's all surface — the right reference points, the right aesthetics, none of the substance. Sharkswimmer is not that band. The Brooklyn quartet has been doing the real work, and with the completion of their Course Correcting EP rollout — the title track now out as the fourth and final single, alongside a music video — they've made their case as loud and clear as anything in the current rock landscape.

Watch "Course Correcting" below.

Course Correcting is Sharkswimmer's first release on Trash Casual and a genuine step forward from their debut LP Serenity — which was already a hell of an introduction, drawing on the aggressive melodicism of Planes Mistaken For Stars, the hook-heavy punch of Basement, and the gritty emotional vulnerability of Fiddlehead. The new EP takes all of that and sharpens it. More confident, more experienced, and more collaborative, it's the sound of a band that knows exactly who they are.

The title track leans into the EP's political undercurrent, pointing a finger at the stubborn, damage-ignoring forces reshaping the country and the particular exhaustion that comes with watching it happen. The verses play as a sarcastic step-by-step guide of what not to do — "secret sleeper hold / painting over every turn / a choice to never learn" — before the chorus pivots to childhood nostalgia and the bridge closes that gap with an adult's unavoidable awareness. The song ends with gang vocals over a victorious instrumental, a defiant shout into the void: "we'll find our way to see through the stains and pull what's under this wreckage we woke up in."

Recorded with producer/engineer Brian DiMeglio (Bartees Strange, Pinkshift, Superbloom) and mastered by Jon Markson (Drug Church, Koyo, Soul Blind), the EP is anchored by Justin Buschardt's songwriting — raw, instinctive material written in a burst of post-divorce clarity — and elevated by the contributions of guitarist Kate Moyer, bassist Kenny Monroe, and new drummer Jason Bauers, whose arrival pushed the band into new tempos and unexpected places. The result is an EP that sits as comfortably next to Drug Church and Militarie Gun as it does in the Jade Tree catalogue of the 90s. Guitar music is in a rich place right now. Sharkswimmer is part of the reason why.

www.sharkswimmer.band