The annual Sŵn Festival held in Cardiff during October is the start of the year for those chasing new music and new names to add to our more than healthy music collections. This year, the quality of new names matched those of previous years. Keith Goldhanger spends three days checking out not just the brand new acts but a few other names we already know about that we still haven’t tired of yet.

Louder than war first started visiting Cardiff for Sŵn Festival back in 2013. It was established within the first few hours that year that this is a very special event. Great venues, a friendly crowd, set times adhered to and a great selection of bands that we already loved or were about to love from all around the world and all playing within a short walk around the city centre.

Sŵn 2025 is no different. We’re in a position to trawl through over a hundred bands appearing before setting off, frustrating ourselves with unavoidable clashes that will occur and being curious about one or two bands that we still cannot find any information about. There are a few bands we already know about and want to see again, there’ll be at least one surprise we imagine. We begin with a plan that we know may not be adhered to considering the amount of options available, but most important are the new acts we’ve already decided have made music recently that excite us and need investigating.

We arrive with a new list of favourite acts we want to spread the word about, and we are aware that there’s more than one way of tackling this three-day event. Do we spend Saturday inside the magnificent Tramshed watching Gurriers (who seem to have had their name on every festival poster this year) alongside bands we’ve seen previously at Sŵn, such as Deadletter (who we first saw inside the tiny Fuel venue at the 2021 event), Getdown Services (who are now pulling in big crowds wherever they appear since we saw them tearing up Tiny Rebel two years ago) and Squid (who appeared at Clwb Ifor Bach in 2019)? Alternatively, we can continue to stay within the Womanby Street area and see some of the acts we’ve already decided are included on our tunes of the year list. We decide the latter of course, and in a couple of years’ time it’s expected we’ll be still doing the same, as bands such as Adult DVD, Punchbag and Morn may possibly be the ones pulling in the punters inside the larger venues across the UK.

Day one starts with AKA who are a mystery to us but perform a superb set that grows in confidence the longer it goes on. Brown Horse, a country band from Norwich provide a refreshing early evening soundtrack, before Piss from Canada intensify proceedings with their glorious assault on our ears that stuns the attentive room into silence as the band perform loud, crashing shouty music whilst challenging issues such as sexual violence during their short appearance. Piss, of course are already the first of our new favourite bands, thanks to Sŵn Festival 2025.

We finally catch up with Pale Blue Eyes whose comforting shoegaze-inspired music reminds us of Australian outfit The Temper Trap (who seem to have disappeared from our lives nowadays), before bracing ourselves to see South African performer Moonchild Sanelly, who disappointingly is still recovering from a recent vocal strain causing us to question how much of what we’re watching is actually being performed live. She’s recently been on tour with Self Esteem (who played the same stage a few years ago during this Festival) who she has collaborated with on a couple of magnificent tracks and, alongside our favorite new tune Falling, we leave disappointed with the omission of these songs from the set.

Sŵn 2025 seems busier this year, however this could be the result of the line up inside Clwb Ifor Bach also playing host to Brighton Electro Punk trio Clt Drp, Midlands-based Gans and Leeds outfit Adult DVD, whose electronic sing-a-long collection of songs certainly win over the packed audience not holding back with some well deserved enthusiasm directed towards each euphoric song the band dish up.

A Thousand Mad Things get us off to a great start on day two, with the duo serving up the most the agreeable New Romantic music that we’ve not heard since 1981, before our first unplanned visit to Fuel, where local four piece Milkincrisis are being responsible for a hugely entertaining performance in front of a good crowd despite the band not having anything released at the moment. Two familiar cover versions surprise those of us grateful we walked in on this chaotic and frantic show, that we hope will materialise into a repeat performance in the future alongside at least one official release. Hopefully we haven’t seen or heard the last of these yet.

Another local band, Slate, who some of us have seen a few times now, continue to perform their grinding, harsh, dark and intense noise in near darkness upstairs at Clwb Ifor Bach. Glasgow’s Her Picture provide a refreshing Cocteau Twins-like collection of shimmering tunes, before we return to Tiny Rebel to see if Kent-based Aki Oke are another band about to join the selection of favourite new bands this festival never ceases to provide us with. The duo’s mid-evening set of party-friendly dance music will certainly win audiences’ affection once they get a few more shows under their belts, one feels. The Function is certainly one of the best tunes of the weekend, and their playful sampling of Vampire Weekends A-Punk will without doubt be appreciated by anyone within earshot. As long as they can steer clear of anything sounding too much like the Vengaboys then we could be onto a winner with Aki Oke’s instantly loveable dance music

Womanby Street is getting busy, there a huge queue to get into Clwb Ifor Bach where Man/Woman/Chainsaw, TTSSFU, Jessica Winter and Punchbag will provide some top quality pop music. But there are six other venues to chose from tonight, and a visit to the more calmer confides of St John’s Church (a new venue for some of us) to catch up with Gulp suits our needs after a busy day of foot tapping sounds we’ve been soaking in for the last six hours. Gulp were one of the first bands we saw at Sŵn back in 2013 – they have since relocated to Scotland, and this weekend are returning to their home city to end our second day in a calming refreshing manner. We’re sitting in a church watching singer Lindsay Loven walk down the aisle as the band’s psychedelic folk music fills the cool evening air. It’s a magnificent way to calm ourselves down again before one more day ahead of us, and as we walk through the busy city streets at the end of the day it’s imagined we’ve just stepped out of the calmest building that Cardiff could provide us with on this late Friday evening.

The Sick Man of Europe are serving up another of this weekend’s highlights with their  rhythmic repetitive noise in the company of a busy Clwb Ifor Bach mid afternoon on Saturday. As much as we’d like to catch up again with Benefits down the road at Jacobs Basement, we decide on staying in the area we have been accustomed to in order to catch Quiet Man inside St Mary Street’s Boho Club (beautiful music in a beautiful venue), the magnificent Morn and Bristol’s My First Time (always entertaining and always worth going to see).

Morn are phenomenal, reminding those of us old enough to remember those early Sonic Youth shows in the late 1980s. Modern Man still sounds as thrilling as it did when it was first heard at the start of the summer, thrown in the middle of the set during another amazing frantic and thrilling show, and we leave the venue as breathless as the four individuals left packing their gear away as we step outside to make a decision on who to catch next.

One of our reasons for swerving Deadletter at The Tramshed today is to see 3l3d3p who does not disappoint. Pronounced simply as ldp, this individual (Marina Thompson) throws herself around the tiny stage, surrounded by some very impressive lighting, as the music thumps and pierces around at ear splitting volume comparing itself to any number of acts we used to listen to on the German Digital Hardcore label in the late 1990s. Atari Teenage Riot come to mind during this explosive, intense and energetic show. Tracks such as (FWD) are greeted with as much enthusiasm as we’ve witnessed all weekend and it’s another highlight of the weekend that needs repeating one day.

Grandmas House begin over the road just as we arrive and we cannot get out of our heads how much easier life would have been for them if they’d been around during the height of grunge back in the 1990s. Multiple vocals, harsh guitars and low level sarcasm keep the packed crowd entertained throughout their impressive performance. It’s a great way to end the weekend, even though we still manage to crane our necks over at Jacobs where Angry Blackmen are entertaining the late night revellers, and we’re sure Dog Race and Baby Morocco would have been certainly worth a look had we paced ourselves a little better.

Yet again we leave Cardiff having experienced one of the highlights of the year. Our music collection has increased more than any other event can be responsible for, and we still have an impressive list of new bands and songs we’ll be monitoring and trying to find time to report on over the next few months that we may not have got to experience during our swift visit to the Welsh Capital.

Some of the songs that we’ve been listening to constantly since returning home can be read about here.

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Words by Keith Goldhanger. More writing by Keith on Louder Than War can be found at his author’s archive. You can also find Keith on Facebook  Instagram and Bluesky