Album Review: Swamp Coffin - Drowning Glory
Reviewed by Sam Jones
It’s been a moment since I checked out some up and coming sludge metal and thus were brought round to Swamp Coffin’s second full length album titled Drowning Glory. Formed back in 2016 out of Rotherham, United Kingdom, Swamp Coffin style themselves upon the fusion of sludge and doom metal to create something truly epic in scope, and monstrous in its impact. The band’s first Demo came out in 2018 which was soon followed up by their first EP, Flatcap Bastard Features, a year later. Then come 2021 and Swamp Coffin released some Singles in preparation for what would become their first album, Noose Almighty, through APF Records. Though my knowledge of the band is scarce I recall this new record, Drowning Glory, making the rounds on social media leading up to its release. Now lined up for a September 27th release date once again through APF Records, Swamp Coffin are back to give us another pummelling of sludge/doom metal, and my first taste of what the band were made of.
Swamp Coffin’s songwriting can best be described as this fusion of murky, shapely riffs interposed with massive cinderblock chords that are thrown down with all the strength the band can muster. Given the band’s sludge/doom style you aren’t going to get the fastest tempo throughout Drowning Glory so everything the band turn out possesses greater impact, especially when their pacing slows, which in turn results in the singular chords striking with much more resonance. Their songwriting is more than just power chords alone, but leaving it at that alone would make it seem like Swamp Coffin’s songwriting is pretty two-dimensional which it is not; their soundscape, though quickly established in the opening minutes of the full record, is one that’s often shifting to make room for newer sequences to come in and keep you engaged. Whilst their general sound is one that’s been done numerous times over, the band ensure you aren’t stuck with the same bit for too long.
While it’s always been a vital element in any band, the bass throughout Swamp Coffin’s performance is given especial importance since you can hear it at all times, even when their sound continues to grow and fill every last gasp of space the record gives us. Where the riffs are these muddied but concentrated strikes, the bass is much more adorned with Swamp Coffin’s aesthetic as it rides the undercurrent of the record, staining, putrefying, violating its surroundings. I can’t recall when I’ve ever heard a bass guitar utilise neck sweeps but Drowning Glory is the first I’ve heard them on; it’s further evidence that the bass was wished to be used just as prominently as the primary riffs. Like the rest of the instrumentation the bass is just as dirty, but it’s a grimy, older kind of dirt than the riffs use so you can enjoy the two different guitars equally in the mix without either one counteracting the other. It also aids the band in establishing Drowning Glory as this miasma-infested landscape where horrors are hiding away and only need to view us to come out with their nightmare forms.
Perhaps the strongest aspect the band have going for them, in standing out from the crowd, are actually the vocals. Listening to a work of sludge/doom metal the vocals are perfectly apt for this style of atmosphere as a lighter or more guttural performance would feel pretty out place. Therefore the vocal tone taken towards this record is spot on since frontman Jon Rhodes manages to illicit a profoundly coarse performance that doesn’t feel so arduous on our ability to listen to him bellow for the full record. This is a similar style we’ve seen across a plethora of sludge albums but I feel like Rhodes’ delivery works where others doesn’t, is because he isn’t going for a full-blown volume-blasting delivery and rather it’s the byproduct of his vocal performance that is the key to keeping audiences enraptured. The vocals may always appear to be reaching for the sonic apex, with the timbre that’s been adopted herein, but Rhodes knows the ceiling his vocals can attain before they become harmful to both himself and the record’s ability to project that grimy, primal nature.
Considering how vast this soundscape is, and the resulting aggression the band clearly pour into their performance within, it’s all the more important and beneficial that Drowning Glory’s production is as refined as it is. The band could very much have pursued a route of cavernous, muddled order where little is given proper standing in the mix so the audience is given just a veritable blast with each track. Thankfully Swamp Coffin didn’t abide by that idea and so chose to give this record at least some semblance of uniformity, though they didn’t go out of their way to render their record with exorbitant amounts of it. I feel like there is just enough order occurring throughout the record to keep the instrumentation and vocals in line with what they’re expected to give us from the band’s, and our, expectations. Other than that, Drowning Glory always feel on the cusp of losing all parameters of sanity or breaking free in total vitriol. Even when their songwriting adapts the steady momentum you always feel like they can break out into total madness at any given moment.
In conclusion, Swamp Coffin’s second album is this huge beast that manages to take you on a heinous ride filled with a myriad of dangers though it always know when it rein itself in so as not to overwhelm its audience. The general basis of their songwriting may seem pretty simplistic, but when you take into account their capacity to write tracks upwards of eight minutes long at a time using this approach, it’s evident that they know what they’re doing and how they can best implement their talents into this style. Sludge/doom metal is tough to get right if you ask me but I believe Swamp Coffin pull it off with great success. It manages to be this equally harrowing and controlled soundscape that knows where its walls are, and just attacks them enough so you can see the cracks forming around you without the record outright destroying itself for you. This is the allure with sludge and doom metal if you ask me, and I’d certainly be curious to see where Swamp Coffin go next.
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