Signs of the Swarm – Amongst the Low and Empty
Signs of the Swarm – Amongst the Low and Empty
Century Media
Release Date: 28/07/23
Running Time: 42:00
Review by Rory Bentley
8.5/10
I’ve made quite a big deal out of championing innovation since I started writing for Ever Metal. One of the reasons I started writing about music was because I was sick and tired of seeing the same derivative legacy acts getting high scores on music sites by absolute marks that have made no effort to exercise their critical faculties other than spewing a bunch of hyperbole about the latest copy of a copy from insert old Thrash band here. It’s not that putting out something that’s been done before is necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but in a time where you have access to all the music that’s ever existed at the tap of a phone screen your record better be fucking good to warrant my time. Enter Signs of the Swarm.
The Deathcore savages have not opted to reinvent the wheel on “Amongst the Low and Empty”, however they have taken the wheel and covered it in spikes ready to crush your skull and tear your stupid fucking face apart. If I had to describe this album in two words it would be comically brutal. There are moments on this record where I laughed out loud at the sheer over the top audio carnage the band has unleashed. Make no mistake they are patently aware of what they’re doing here, each song fine-tuned to cause maximum damage and joy for sick fucks like me that revel in this disgusting racket.
From the opening barrage of the title track it is abundantly clear that the band’s agenda is to beat the shit out of you. The drums are relentless, chugging guitars are an immediate cure for constipation, and the vocals sound like a wounded bear wiping its arse with sandpaper. Despite this, there are signs of an eclectic palette of influences buried within the muck. Around the 2:30 mark things take on an almost Gojira-like vibe with the crushing guitars forming a satisfying off-kilter groove, while the truly vile goblin vocals and inhuman drums at 3:30 owe a lot to Tech-Death. ‘Pray For Death’ meanwhile melds an Industrial intro with rumbling Meshuggah riffs and a snare drum that sounds like a gunshot, and the angular panic chords on ‘Borrowed Time’ are a little slice of 2000s Hardcore heaven. The latter song also features an excellent use of atmospheric keyboards punctuating the chorus section. The quality of the production and mix really comes to the fore here, enabling the heaviest, most impactful sections to pop despite literally everything being heavy throughout the whole composition. This is a really hard trick to pull off and the band should be commended for showing an excellent grasp of dynamics in a style and approach that runs the risk of being incredibly one dimensional.
Both ‘Fire and Stone’ and ‘Shackles Like Talons’ expand these more ambient elements to an impressive scale. Yes they’re both still jaw-shatteringly violent when they get going, however there is an almost Post-Metal grandeur to the cavernous reverberated vocals on the former and the serene intro section of the latter. Despite this commendable display of finesse, however, the name of the game for the album is still to punch you in the throat. Which is probably why my wife screamed at me to turn it off when I first listened to it. Excellent.
In all honesty there’s no discernible dip in the album, with each song adding a subtle new element such as the sparingly used melodic vocals on ‘Dreamkiller’ along with its grandiose lead guitar outro. Of course, Matt Heafy makes his obligatory appearance on a modern Deathcore album, lending his scream to the pummelling Thrash attack of ‘The Witch Beckons’ and getting well and truly schooled by vocalist David Simonich’s truly horrifying gurgling. By the time I got to closing track ‘Malady’ there was a split second where the ambient intro tricked me into thinking there’d be an eye-rolling ballad-like finale to the album like so many bands of Signs of the Swarm’s ilk. But no this one is just as horrifying and that bottom guitar string is straight up disgusting.
This an album that makes zero attempts at crossover appeal but is all the better for it. Despite its seemingly thuggish approach, this a precision-engineered slab of heaviness that holds the listener’s interest from start to finish, adding just enough variety to keep things fresh but not at the expense of consistently sounding like the fires of hell are blasting through your speakers. It won’t be for everyone, you have to be in the right mood to vibe with it and it’s not exactly boundary pushing despite its subtle innovations, but it’s hard to view this putrid slice of absolute filth as anything other than a massive success!
‘Dreamkiller’ Official Video
TRACKLISTING:
01. Amongst the Low & Empty
02. Tower of Torsos
03. Pray for Death
04. Borrowed Time
05. Between Fire & Stone
06. Shackles Like Talons
07. DREAMKILLER
08. The Witch Beckons
09. Echelon
10. Faces Without Names
11. Malady
LINE-UP:
Vocals – David Simonich
Bass – Michael Cassese
Drums – Bobby Crow
LINKS:
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