Swarm – s/t
With a blend of doom rock with a touch of indie and hardcore-elements, Swarm have made their debut a great piece, with high re-listening value. With members from Disfear and Entombed, things just can’t go wrong. At least not when you’ve suspected that the release would be good on those merits alone. This record is a nice blend between indie-elements, decent rock and the almost surreal but gloomy doom influences.
Whilst the band doesn’t live by the legendary rock-motto of “sex, drugs and rock’n’roll“, it’s prevalent why they’ve noted craftsmanship and art as their man focus. The first song, Santiago is a marvelous piece of a new era in itself. It becomes obvious why they’ve chosen a minimalistic design for their front cover, because of the re-representation of it in the song. A lurking element of minimalism seems to grab hold of the slower doom elements, but fits perfectly well in the bigger picture which is being upheld by quite a grandiose sound scape. Switching irresponsibly between the indie and doom, accompanied by distorted vocals. Everything seems more alive than the traditional doom that would leave oneself occupied with almost falling asleep before something great happens. Not that it’s a perfect example of doom, but they seem to lack the extreme focus that is needed for that kind of music. You can easily go with the flow, because there’s always something happening. If not a crushingly heavy riff, it’d be filled with an indie environment that would make the most dedicated indie-fans jealous.
Born To Ruin is also a balanced piece of art. It reminds me of good arena-rock, but at the same time it takes the subtle hardcore influences to a new high. This will be something you can sing along to, and something to anticipate when the slow doom breaks kick in. A pleasure to hear and a good song all-in-all, a reminder to everyone that this is a new era. They also include the emotionally fulfilled passages that you’d rarely find in any hardcore or indie song, the multi-faceted sound of deep down in the catacombs but at the same time not totally droopy or melancholic. The hardcore-vocals that surface after five minutes into the song, accompany the rest of it which makes it a total bliss to listen to.
So if you like some of the slower hardcore out there and find it to be a good match with doom – then this would be something worth listening to.
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