Earlier this year some hero – I forget who – recommended Noose Almighty by Swamp Coffin to me. I loved its filthy blend of sludgy riffs and spiky vocals – giving off as it does major Hang the Bastard and Iron Monkey vibes. I was late to the party as it came out in 2021 but this time thanks to Ave Noctum I have a front row seat for Drowning Glory, coming as it does just after band finish a short run with mates of mine A Horse Called War.
When I first heard Swamp Coffin I did not realise how much the band have been plagued by tragedy. The day before the debut was released bassist Martyn White attempted to take his own life. After he recovered from this episode his father and vocalist/guitarist Jon Rhodes mother in law both died within hours of each other. These awful events added to the death of John’s brother in law in 2017 and a house fire that made Jon homeless a few months later.
“This band is fucking cursed” is the statement and mantra behind Drowning Glory.
It takes a minute to take in the amount of trauma Jon and Martyn alongside drummer Dave Wistow have gone through. The fact that they were able to channel the pain into their art shows great bravery and the fact that it sounds so fucking great is amazing.
Going into this with the knowledge of the shadow that has been over this band for 7 years it is no surprise that the subject matter is pretty bleak and pessimistic. Terminally Cursed, Know You’re Worthless, This Was Always Going to End in War etc. The music is anything but glum though. It’s angry and full of rage sure but that anger seems purposeful and even hopeful. This is not the soundtrack of a trio beaten into submission but rather, three men who have had the shit kicked out of them by life but are climbing back to their feet with a manic glint in their eyes.
Opening with Know You’re Worthless the riffs come thick and fast and the rhythm section pounding the listener into submission. The layered vocals towards the end work brilliantly. I am not sure whether it is the bands intent but it gave me the impression of auditory hallucinations – two voices sitting on the shoulder of the protagonist barking malcontent directly into their psyche.
This Was Always Going to End in War pulsates and booms from the get go. It’s beat and main riff is as hypnotic as it is bombastic and again, brings to mind Hang the Bastard.
The title track is a slab of epic nastiness that has a vein of melancholy running through it, gothic sounding reverb on the guitars and some doom death 90’s style lead guitar sections. I felt like I needed to be wearing a frilly shirt and heading to Whitby. It is interesting to hear the band unleash some different chops which mean once the sludgy vocals cut back in their cuts seem even more barbed.
Swamp Coffin mange to make sadness and despair ragged and tormented. Hypocritical Mass throbs and pulses like the stump of an amputated limb in a 70’s Samurai flick whilst the cleverly titled Chapter and Hearse is heavy on the latter day Cathedral vibes. The melody here is wonderfully at odds with the rasped vocals and accentuates both aspects to great effect. As a massive Curehead I even get some Pornography vibes from it as well. The depression era film clip midway through is backed by a sorrowful acoustic passage that drops into a vocal section that hits like the most emotional post hardcore or blackgaze but never loses its dirty sludgy feel. I feel like I am listening to Fiddlehead filtered through tar and spiked gauntlets.
Terminally Cursed mixes up meaty modern hardcore riffs with a dooooomy as fuck sensibility and tops it off with vocals straight out of the trapdoor in Evil Dead 2 and throws in some deliciously atmospheric guitar licks that take me back to Entombed Left Hand Path.
The seventh and final track on Drowning Glory is As Cold As Blood and it is a spiteful cunt of a track. The “No one’s gonna fucking save you” refrain hits like Knocked Loose meets Cattle Decapitation (no Mickey Mouse style vocals though – hey I like Bryan’s vocals!). This track epitomises the Swamp Coffin sound. They appear to take the gravitas from across the spectrum of extreme music and hardcore and distil it into their own sludgy, filthy compositions. The last couple of years have seen a lot of bands crossover audiences – especially between Death Metal and Hardcore. Swamp Coffin could and should be the ones to take UK sludge to the crowd killers and beatdowners of the U.S. This album has crossover hit written all over it, in piss, shit and blood.
(9/10 Matt Mason)
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