Ryan O’Connell isn’t British, but you’d be forgiven for thinking he’d grown up down the road from a Gallagher. So Coolswaggers out of the speakers like it’s just stumbled out of a late ‘90s pub lock-in, nursing a pint, a heartbreak, and a chip on its shoulder. Hailing from Atlanta, O’Connell might be a Yank, but he’s channelled the spirit of a time when guitar bands walked tall, talked shit, and didn’t apologise for either.
The track’s got that unmistakable lurch of a Britpop bruiser—but slowed down, fuzzed up, and emotionally threadbare. It’s not chasing stadium glory; it’s sitting in the back row, arms folded, smirking at the chaos. The guitar riff is the main event here—gritty, lazy in the best way, and worn like a favourite old leather jacket. It feels like a cousin of Live Forever, but one who dropped out of uni, got into Pavement, and never looked back.
The vocals come in dry as sandpaper and twice as sharp. There’s something beautifully disaffected in the delivery—like he’s half-arsing it on purpose to avoid sounding desperate. But underneath the nonchalance is a solid bit of emotional wiring. That chorus, “Maybe I was a fool / but baby I am cool (so cool),” is a hook that doesn’t hit you with a punch—it slides in, like the last line of a text you shouldn’t have sent. It’s got that Elliott Smith vulnerability but filtered through distortion and denim.
Lyrically, it walks the tightrope between earnest and ironic. It’s not trying to be profound, but it lands somewhere meaningful anyway. There’s a sense of a bloke who’s been up all night thinking about someone he pretends not to care about. It’s relatable, scruffy, and smartly underplayed. The production leans lo-fi without going full cassette-in-a-shoebox, and that’s to its credit.
The middle third of the track almost fades into itself—it floats when it could’ve driven. A bridge or a shift in dynamic would have broken things up nicely. It holds your attention, but just barely, like someone telling a great story in a monotone. You’re hooked, but you want them to lean in and sell it a bit harder.
Still, this isn’t a tune that wants to shout. It’s the sort that gets passed around on late-night playlists between mates who think they’ve found something no one else knows. And maybe they have.
Keep your ears on him. He might just be the most British-sounding bastard to ever come out of Georgia.
FOLLOW HIM HERE
🇺🇸 FOR MORE NEW MUSIC NEWS FROM THE USA CHECK OUT RGM USA 🇺🇸