Just every now and then, you get a bit of a cracker and it’s all the sweeter for not having heard the band before. I got this a little while ago, but some unexpected moves at work have meant that while I’ve been able to listen to it a lot on the commute, free time has been a little hard to come by to sit down and write a review. Deathswarm are a Swedish death metal band, with a couple of members of the band Sarcasm in their ranks. This is their second album (their first, “Shadowlands of Darkness”) came out in 2019. What do we get then?

Well, in pretty basic terms, upon listening to opening track “We Still Burn”, I immediately thought, “…hang on…this sounds a lot like Memoriam”. This is to say that Deathswarm are groovy, mid-tempo old-school death metal that manoeuvres in the same tank-tracks of the aforementioned UK deathsters, along with the hefty martial influence of Bolt Thrower and Hail of Bullets. The attack only gets stronger with second number, “Unshackle the Jackal”, where the tempo is upped to “Blitzkrieg” levels, but the same grinding, unrelenting riffing takes centre stage. I’ve often wondered why more bands didn’t follow the path laid out by Bolt Thrower, given that they’re pretty much universally loved, with a handful of outfits that have ever taken influence from their style.

In terms of death metal, this is as listenable as it’s possible to get. No, it’s not out and out melodic, but the old-school nature of the approach means that this one has got more atmosphere than my tent the morning after an ill-advised kebab and 12 pints of real ale session at a festival. Within each number there’s usually a pretty tasty guitar hook that embeds itself firmly into your brain, while the drumming is very reminiscent of Andy Whale, being a merciless bashing that prefers ruthless efficiency over out and out technical showcase stuff. On “In The Wells they Await”, things slow down to an almost doom-metal crawl, which allows the diesel-engine rumble of the bass to take centre stage for a while, until it cuts out completely for a while – conjuring a sinister, evocative mood.

At just nine tracks long, “Forward into Oblivion” whets the appetite for more, which is just as well because this is one band that I am going to be keeping an eye out for. In the micro-niche of Bolt-a-likes, they’re up there with the best of them, and if you are a fan of the World-Eating ones, you’re guaranteed to like this. Simply put, this is the closest you can get to being Bolt Thrower without being Bolt Thrower, unless, that is, you’re Memoriam.

Good stuff all round.

(8.5/10 Chris Davison)

https://www.facebook.com/deathswarm

https://fda-records.bandcamp.com/album/forward-into-oblivion