The Sŵn Review 2025
Cardiff’s best-kept-secret city festival felt bigger than ever this year. Here’s the lowdown on the artists I got to see.
Golden leaves, cloudy skies and the distant thrum of live music; Sŵn weekend is like Christmas for Cardiff’s alternative music scene. Wolf cuts and mullets galore fill the streets, and anyone who looks like they could be in a band may well be. This year’s edition felt bigger than ever, with new venues and a mesmerising range of sounds. Here are my picks of the bunch for the weekend’s highlights and the new discoveries that I made.
THE BEST OF THE BEST
Slate
Hotly slated (wohay!) to be one of the best of the weekend, Cardiff’s premier post-punk four piece delivered pure atmosphere to a packed top floor at Clwb Ifor Bach. Slate have rarely been off my regular listening since first seeing them at Sŵn ‘23, channelling Gothic and Noise Rock influences into a slick, nimble sound that moves with dexterity at the command of their impassioned frontman Jack Shepherd. Apologies if I caused any awkward eye contact – I ended up dead-centre and unable to duck his gaze. Add to all this the wicked combination of dim stage lighting and the dazzle of relentless camera flashes, and the result was an almost cinematic performance. It’s hard for me to understate how much a band with these sonic credentials is everything I want from music. New material was teased; trust, I will be first in line.
Jessica Winter
Jessica Winter has an exceptional command of Synthpop. She is fluent in all its facets, drawing tangible shape out of her production and insatiable rhythm from her beats. But upon seeing her live for the first time, I also realised that she has nailed a nuanced reading of its visual aesthetics. On stage, she arrives like an office siren, Burberry trenchcoat and heels, accompanied by her mixer in similar getup, their silhouettes cut by two light panels behind them. A fantasia of the genre’s eighties origins, turned queer. The coats are soon lost as the tracks get sweatier, and god is she good at making dance music. Harmonies soar as the choreo draws screams from the crowd. Her debut LP is out now, and the cuts from it were bombastic. ‘All I Need’, meanwhile, remains one of the most eminently arse-shaking tracks of the decade.
Squid
Ever-reliable, and yet never not the best thing happening right now, Squid were a surprise announcement for Saturday night on this year’s second wave. There’s big Sŵn history here: I was lucky enough to be at their rammed set in 2019, back when Town Centre had just dropped and we were still getting our head around their quirkiness. Six years on, and though bigger, smoother and jazzier in their recent studio releases, the sheer scale of their live energy remains untouched. My mate and I, who’s an equally big fan, spend most of the time singing along with our hands up. It was their last date of the year, and the setlist packed their best tracks with the highlights from 2025’s “Cowards”. As the frenetic opening of ‘Pamphlets’ got under way, I made a bee-line for the moshpit, only for the crowd to part like the Red Sea and guide me to a spot on the barricade. Sod the moshing, it’s rare that I get this far forward for my favourite bands. Yet, I still needed help from one of my friends to find the confidence to ask for a setlist at the end (cheers Isaac!).
The Meritones
One of the loudest sounds coming out of Cardiff right now, The Meritones’s lewd, rambunctious energy is aptly complimented by the long hair of their band members. Every corner of Fuel’s boxy stage was filled by their coarse, invigorating noise, switching from track to track with whiplash. If sweaty, messy punk is your thing, buy your stocks now. And don’t confuse them for the Reggae band of the same name who always seem to come up when searching for them.
Prima Queen
Big, twinkling Indie rollickers fill Prima Queen’s already extensive back catalogue, whose debut LP The Prize dropped earlier this year. All built on the charisma of their two leads Lousie Macphail and Kristin McFadden, the band’s sound needn’t be groundbreaking when their riffs glimmer with nostalgia and their lyrics are written with classic kitchen-sink realness.
FAVOURITE NEW FINDS
Aki Oke
Skepticism about artists from the belly of London’s party scene is always justified, but a number of my friends had touted Aki Oke being worth a punt regardless. They were right. Oke is sweaty, heady and catchy as fuck. Cut from the same cloth as the capital’s Hyperpop scene, his set mixes pulsing beats with 2Step inflections, creating something sexy and deliciously urban.
Keo
I’m such a sucker for anything even vaguely Shoegazey or Post-Grungey. Cue Keo, who’s namesake lead Finn Keogh has an immediate presence as soon as we walk into the top floor of Clwb. Check out the Kangol hat he has on too, only adding to their nineties revival style. The band’s debut EP Siren got played in full, every track from it bold and raw, with poetic lyricism and beautiful delivery.
Opal Mag
Hailing from Brighton, and apparently on their first ever visit to Cardiff, Opal Mag are effusively, unstoppably fun. There’s no doubt the band are still in their infancy, but the buds of an original sound are there, especially with the sweet hooks of their choruses. It was especially charming to keep seeing them all about the place for the rest of the evening. Here’s hoping they enjoyed the city.
Grandma’s House
Yasmin Berndt has an arresting voice. Contralto and haunting, ideally matching the swirling rumble of the band’s instrumentation. Every Grandma’s House song builds to a cacophony of a chorus, punkish guitars thrashing whilst thumping drums punch at your ears. A ferocity sits under all of their writing, tracks constructed as though trying to tame it, making for a firmly teeth-gritting set.
WELL I WASN’T EXPECTING THAT
Peiriant
You can always trust Sŵn to pull out an off-kilter venue. How about the lofty hall of St John’s Church, pink light glowing through its stain-glassed windows? On first visit, inside were Peiriant, a Welsh two piece with an absorbing blend of Folk and sound art. No arrogance or gimmicks here; Rose and Dan Linn-Pearl construct each track with an earnestness, turning to additional instruments for flourish alongside their violin and guitar foundation. As a short reprieve from the bustle of other sets, it was nothing short of fulfilling.
BabyMorocco
Am I foolish for thinking slutty pop wouldn’t be even sluttier heard live? Maybe. We all packed into Jacob’s Basement for the last set of the festival, ideally placed to get everyone moving as the clock went well past midnight. BabyMorocco was loud, chaotic and queer, repeatedly asking the technicians to turn the sound up even more. Not a single straight person was to be found up front. Further back, the low stage meant the only time we could see him was when he was doing pull-ups on the ceiling beams. These revealed that A) he was only in a pair of grey boxers and B) that he was absolutely stacked. My boyfriend and I agree this was hot.
Papaya Noon
Amongst the colourful lighting of Tiny Rebel’s upstairs, Papaya Noon knocked out a slinky, deliriously funky set, rocking a sound that mixed everything and anything that can be elevated by a good bass line. I’d love to point you to some of their material, but with only one release on streaming so far, they remain something truly only experienced live. Cop that compliment from Snoop Dogg though – there’s little in the way of higher praise than that.
BETTER OFF ALONE
Samana
It was a year of few misses, save for Samana, who we happened upon on a last-chance visit to St John’s before we headed for Tramshed. Pretentiousness really stands out at Sŵn, given how unpretentious Cardiff is. Read their ‘About’ page and try not to vomit. I don’t appreciate anyone appropriating “the distant cities of Eastern Europe” (what?) like they’re some mystical land for Westerners to find spirituality in, and I especially don’t like artists who can’t find a way to end a song without just strumming their instruments into a faux-crescendo.
THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY
Search Results
It’s a well-worn routine at city festivals to be trying to meet your mates at a venue, only to arrive and find it at capacity. I was only able to hear the lively jangle of Search Results through the fire exit of Clwb’s downstairs stage, all of which was very much up my street. Here’s to the next time the Dubliners are in Cardiff.
Ani Glass
I had been very excited to experience the breathy, celestial Synthpop of Ani Glass (sister of Gwenno no less – how’s about that, Wales having two incredible electronica artist siblings!), but it turned out a lot of other people were as well. We waited patiently on the stairs of Tiny Rebel in the hopes of being let in, but it didn’t come to fruition.
Why Horses?
A new, weird, five-piece Art Rock band from Cardiff? Yes please. Upon discovering Why Horses? courtesy of a recommendation online, I’d had their debut EP Yeah, Hi? on all day Thursday in anticipation, only to find out that I had bought the wrong ticket. The EP is cracking though, and I hope to see them soon.
Sŵn Festival 2025, 16th-18th October 2025
