Sword II

In a busted, musty house in Atlanta, where the basement flooded when it rained, the air smelled like mildew, and the landlord once tried to evict them for using the space as an “electronic rock band facility,” Sword II recorded the most ambitious, accessible, and electrically charged music of their lives. Electric Hour, the band’s forthcoming full-length for section1, is a wildly catchy and deeply principled rock record. It’s about the beauty and terror of living under a surveillance state, loving people through extreme hardships, and finding strength in friendship and creative resistance. Self-recorded over a 14-month period by the band - Mari González (she/her), Certain Zuko (she/her), and Travis Arnold (he/him) - the album marks Sword II’s first fully cohesive statement after years of working in a more experimental, song-by-song mode. Each member brings a distinct set of influences: Mari drawing from the emotional and sonic complexity of Joanna Newsom and Kate Bush, the grit of Lucinda Williams, and the drama of musical theater; Certain blends the theatricality of Rocky Horror, the raw energy of hardcore punk, and the playful psychedelia of MGMT; Travis channels the pop bite of Avril Lavigne, the glossy darkness of The Weeknd, and the layered intensity of My Bloody Valentine. Together, they’ve forged a sound that’s raw, unadorned, defiant, and grounded in real-world experience. The sessions for Electric Hour took place in a crumbling rental house on a farm in the city. The space was cheap, but it came with a cost. The electrical wiring was so faulty that it repeatedly shocked them while playing electric instruments or using microphones. The shocks got to be too much at times, leading to the band using more acoustic instrumentation than they’d ever used before. The roof leaked, and the landlord refused to fix anything. One week after signing their record deal, four of their friends were raided by the FBI in connection with the Stop Cop City movement: a three year fight to stop a police training center from being built over an urban forest. One of them was jailed for months. Police cars loitered on their street. That atmosphere of tension and paranoia found its way into the songs. “Sentry” channels that paranoia directly, blurring the line between state surveillance and obsessive love behind a sludgy drone with a hint of sparkle. “Even if it’s Just a Dream” is a dark, sci-fi love song driven by surreal and syrupy arpeggios that imagines a fantastical future where two people of the same sex conceive a child through a surreal, surgical miracle. “Disconnection” is a meditation on alienation and exploitation, reflecting the experience of sex workers, gig workers, and anyone trapped in capitalism’s machinery. “Sugarcane” is a DIY power-pop daydream that compares an addictive relationship to the destructive cycles of industrial farming. “Passionate Nun,” by contrast, is a campy queer Catholic school love song full of danger and teenage longing. Elsewhere, the album explores betrayal, technology, desire, and survival. Despite these heavy themes, Electric Hour is endlessly inviting and replayable. Sword II set out to write songs that felt personal and strong, with a focus on vocals and stripped-down arrangements that could stand on their own. They leaned into harmonies, acoustic guitar, and vocal layering rather than masking everything in reverb or distortion. The goal was to connect, not to obscure. During the final months of tracking, the band began wearing full camouflage in the studio. It became a daily ritual, a way to turn each session into a kind of battle. They fought against distraction, fatigue, and self-doubt, and they did it together. Every song on the record was co-written, self-produced, self recorded, and collaboratively arranged. Even lead vocal duties were a shared responsibility. They worked nearly every day, navigating creative disagreements and learning how to trust one another more deeply. Outside, there was a chicken coop and a clover field. Inside, the moldy basement and the threat of electrocution were a constant reminder of their limitations. Throughout Electric Hour, the band balances raw urgency with theatricality, without ever posturing. Sword II lives and works inside the systems they’re critiquing. Their friends are still fighting charges. Their landlord is still trying to sell off their old home to developers. They’ve lived the fear and despair they write about, but they’ve also felt joy, sexiness, and power through creating music together. Sword II has long been a staple of Atlanta’s DIY scene, and while Electric Hour roots remain firmly planted in their community, the songs do ultimately mark a shift, reaching for something bigger and more transcendent. The band describes themselves as “survivors, psychic warriors, lovers.” That spirit carries through every note. In their own words: “The title was inspired by the idea that we are in the era of surveillance technology, but also we imagined ‘electric hour’ as something powerful, a time for creativity, potency and revolution - ‘the time is now’ type situation. We imagined the ‘hour’ as the time a band gets to be on stage - one hour to make your point to the audience, to make sense of the situation facing humanity. One hour to bring into the physical world the music that resonates with people facing repression, increasing alienation, and violence. Basically, one shot to make the revolution. It’s very daunting because you only get one life, one hour. But our limitation is what shows us what is important, what is worthy of our time in this life.”