Attending UK TechFest recently means that I ran the risk of being deathcored out, but it’s all good. Here’s another example of the genre from Signs of the Swarm. Their fifth album, “Amongst the Low and Empty” promises for our enjoyment another relentless assault and more breakdowns in every sense of the word.
Inevitably it starts with machine-gun fire drumming, and the general ambiance of ripping flesh. Switches and transitions are commonplace and welcome, as they add colour. But all in all this opening song, which shares its title with the album, is an expansive exercise in blood-soaked carnage. This was going to be a hard act to follow. What was keeping me hooked here were the little breaks, and the dark, nay black, sound effects and breakdowns which have all the hallmarks of crumbling worlds. It’s all packed with venom and energy. Just when you think it can’t get any darker or more apocalyptic, “Tower of Torsos” does just that. “Pray for Death” then begins like an industrial process before the customary hammering and ear bleeding begin. Drums trigger in this world of death and violence. I picture dark and mean streets at night in industrial Pittsburgh where Signs of the Swarm come from. The sound breakdowns add extra menace like adding a sixth sugar to your coffee. But there’s no time for niceties like relaxing breaks as the band pile into us with their deadly deathcore.
The sirening and technical firepower continues with “Borrowed Time”. It’s brutal but that’s perhaps a statement of the obvious. My enjoyment was coming from the brutality but more from the breakdowns, the collapses and distortions which enhance the atmosphere so much. So dark are the breakdowns of “Fire Stone” that it’s like a breakdown of the nervous kind. “Shackles Like Talons” has the ambiance of digging out corpses. It’s harsh. They’re all harsh but this one is enhanced by a distant technical so which adds colour without detracting from the core disaster zone. “Dreamkiller” is plain dirty until the end when the song expands into an expansive dreamland, and momentarily transform the atmosphere. This was never going to last long, and doesn’t as “The Witch Beckons” is in our face from the off. Slower and creepier, it has a hardcore element. Death and murder are still at the forefront of course. The fierce winds blow through “Echelon”. Drums trigger, the guitars plumb the depths and the growler growls and hisses amid sinister and disturbing scenes. A choir can be heard but it’s no less dark, nasty or violent out there. A technical riff starts off “Faces Without Names”. The atmosphere is as ever deathly as the band’s tight instrumental control takes us in circles of powerlessness against the swirling and growling onslaughts and the breakdowns. It ends with dark and misty electronica, and leads into “Malady”, a final pounding and tortured reminder of desperate times through the medium of pungent sound-infused deathcore.
So brutal it is. I liked the way Signs of the Swarm hold this together with the tight instrumental passages, breakdowns, technical diversions and sound effects. It all adds up to an interesting and ferocious journey. “Amongst the Low and Empty” is a bold album.
(8.5/10 Andrew Doherty)
Leave a Reply