Swallowed - Lunarterial

Written by Kevin Page.

Cover art (Four Eyes) by Peter Birkhäuser.

When it comes down to it, Swallowed could have gone the easy route and spit forth 8-10 songs that sounded like their 2010 self titled EP and most people would have been happy (myself included). But instead they made a record that's vile, nasty and uglier than you would have imagined. This isn't a pretty album. It's not meant to be an easy listen.

Plenty of bands back in be early '90's based half their so called 'savagery' on a piss poor production. Even nowadays you can find endless bands that slap the treble knob all the way up to mask the fact they can't play a decent chord. Swallowed simply relies on the grotesqueness of the riffs. Imagine Autopsy's Severed Survival, doomed up, put the guitar higher in the mix and sprinkled with a Finnish Black/Death flair. The sound is both non retro and non modern at the same time. The production has this wonderful feeling of horny elephants stampeding through the room causing mass chaos.

Throughout it's 53 minute runtime you will feel as if you were jettisoned in an escape pod and crash landed on a desolate planet. There's nowhere to turn, you don't know what to do or where to go. Suddenly a violent cacophony of instruments makes you run for your life. Yet there is no escape, no happy ending, just barren nothingness. If the cover art doesn't creep you out, picture it while listening to the monstrous 25 minute closing number, "Libations". It's nerve racking and uneasy. And I love it.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]