Music Review: BAILEN, ‘SWIM!!!’
In the New York trio’s third album and first independent release, they trust their instincts and express their truest, rawest selves.
BAILEN’s SWIM!!! album artwork.
There is a strange void that opens the moment an album is released.
Years of writing, recording, second-guessing and refining suddenly end with a click. The songs no longer belong solely to the people who made them. They disappear into streaming platforms, social feeds and headphones, leaving an artist wondering what, if anything, is coming back.
BAILEN. Photo credit: Alex Brown.
For New York trio BAILEN, release day can feel like screaming into a void and asking if anyone can hear you. SWIM!!! (released on September 25th) is the third album from siblings Daniel, David and Julia Bailen, who have built a passionate following with their folk-rock sound and streamlined, pop-inflected three-part harmonies. While 2019’s Thrilled to Be Here reached the Top 20 of Billboard’s Heatseekers Albums and 2023’s Tired Hearts brought a more balanced sound with rich harmonies and a sleeker pop shine, with SWIM!!! it feels like they got to the heart of the band.
All the more reason to have cautious anticipation. “It’s like going to the forest and yelling for no one,” Daniel joked days before the release. Rather than obsess over streams and numbers, he would rather find that response somewhere tangible. “Your phone can only show you so much love,” he said. “But if it’s an in-person connection, that’s what it’s always all about.”
Daniel Bailen, Turf Club, St. Paul. Photo credit: Tom Smouse.
Ten days before SWIM!!! entered that void, BAILEN got exactly that kind of connection at the Turf Club in St. Paul.
Opening the Midwest portion of their tour in Minnesota, the Bailens stood in the peculiar position of performing songs they had lived with for years to fans encountering many of them for the first time. Daniel compared it to the band’s earliest days, when listeners had to discover their music in real time. The crowd already knew the three released singles, but the unreleased material offered something different, the chance for BAILEN to watch people process the new record directly in front of them.
Julia Bailen, Turf Club, St. Paul. Photo credit: Tom Smouse.
One of the surprises was “Inevitable,” a song Daniel worried might be too strange and nuanced to immediately connect. Instead, the audience followed the band into it. “They’re really going on this journey with us,” he remembered thinking. “There’s a lot of nuance and it takes a lot of care to listen to.” David’s falsetto during “Send Me Off”—the first song on the set where he sang lead from behind the drums—produced a more immediate response, drawing screams from the audience.
David Bailen, Turf Club, St. Paul. Photo credit: Tom Smouse.
The band has created something that feels fresh and familiar at the same time. BAILEN’s 2023 album, Tired Hearts, was partially shaped by the isolation of the pandemic and a recording process where songs were often discovered inside the studio. With SWIM!!!, the siblings wanted to return to the foundation of what makes BAILEN sound like BAILEN, three musicians in a room figuring things out together.
Instead of individually stacking their signature harmonies, they gathered around microphones and sang them live. “Kansas Tornado,” for example, was captured around a single microphone. Daniel describes SWIM!!! as a return to the band’s “true live core trio sound,” where limitations enhance creativity. That return also coincided with a much larger change: SWIM!!! is BAILEN’s first independent record. The album’s title became a declaration of that independence, an exhortation to trust your instincts, ignore the outside noise and remember that you already know how to swim.
For Daniel, that meant rejecting the comparisons that can surround a band working within the traditional label system and rediscovering the brash confidence BAILEN had while cutting its teeth in clubs in New York and London. He calls SWIM!!! the band’s “rawest, truest form”—and the rare BAILEN album he can revisit without immediately thinking about what he wishes they had done differently.
But independence isn’t about rejecting ambition. Daniel still wants the band to grow. He simply wants that growth to be sustainable and to be able to look back knowing they made the music they wanted to make.
BAILEN. Photo credit: Alex Brown.
The title track of the new album is a song born from a moment when everything could have ended much differently. Julia was riding with her parents on Thanksgiving when an out-of-control vehicle struck their car.
Daniel experienced the accident from a terrifying distance. He was on the phone with his mother when it happened. “All of a sudden I hear just a bang and just blood-curdling screams from my parents and my sister,” he recalled. “And then the phone drops, the call drops.” Watching their location on his phone, Daniel could see the car stopped in the middle of the highway as traffic began building behind it. For roughly half an hour, he had no idea what had happened to his family.
All three survived, and in the immediate aftermath, Julia made herself a promise: If she made it through this, she wouldn’t quit the band. Daniel was still trying to comprehend the accident the following day when Julia showed him a new song she had already begun writing. That song became “SWIM!!!”
BAILEN, Turf Club, St. Paul. Photo credit: Tom Smouse.
“Eve Babitz” channels the sleek poppiness of HAIM, but with Julia’s charismatic attitude. “Never Gonna Live It Down” anchors the album with their trademark harmonies, a party cowbell, and the best “nah nahs” heard in years. “This Is It” evokes the spirit of Daisy Jones & the Six; Julia could easily play Daisy in a remake.
“In My Name” is the soul of the album, a song about the complexities of Jewish identity in America right now and the pain of having violence justified in your name. Julia wrote and recorded it while the Gaza protests at Columbia were happening outside their window. The song showcases a strong, confident sound with hard-hitting production that gives it a scrappy urgency.
That scrappiness is appropriate: this album emerged from family homes, their grandfather’s basement and an abandoned church. A fan’s invitation to check out some equipment in storage led them to rare vintage 1970s recording gear, which they used for the record.
Julia Bailen, Turf Club, St. Paul. Photo credit: Tom Smouse.
The title sums it all up: their recent independence, the new lease on life the accident gave them, the scrappiness and passion they put into their music. SWIM!!! suggests survival, but the album’s larger statement is about trusting yourself once you realize you can stay afloat.
That should make the release-day silence a little easier. BAILEN can send SWIM!!! screaming into the void without knowing exactly what will come back.
And, 10 days earlier in a small club in Minnesota, they received an early answer. People listened. They followed the weird chords. They screamed for David’s falsetto. They growled back when Julia cranked the guitar. They learned songs they’d never heard before. For this one night, the void answered back loud and clear.
About the Author & Photographer
Tom Smouse. Photo Credit: Chris Taylor.
Tom Smouse is an innovative collaborator with 20 years of experience in the Minnesota music industry. As a professional photographer, podcaster, and music journalist, sharing stories from the community remains his core passion. When not at a show you can find him at a record store.
