Friday, September 4, 2009

Swallowed - Discography


Genre - Old School Death Metal, Death/Doom
Reviews - There has been a surge of new bands that worship old school death metal bands and try to play in their vein. I tried more than hundreds of them but to be honest, I wasnt impressed much by any of them (excepting a few like Dead Congregation, Deathevokation, Necros Christos, Maim, Excoriate and of course Swallowed).

This band is a massive Autopsy worship and thats why a cover of "In The Grip of Winter" doesnt quite come as a sweet surprise. The band picks up right from where the album Mental funeral had ended. Though Autopsy have been a source of inspiration for many death/doom bands but most of them fuck it up entirely by adding melodic/synth element. But some of the bands who are intelligent and talented enough are able to sound at least partly like Severed Survival. But in the case of Swallowed we are talking about "Mental Funeral" worship. Yes, you heard me right! Its really a collosal task to create slow doomy music yet sound massively brutal. Thats what Autopsy had achieved with that towering release of theirs which other bands cant even dream of.

Swallowed employs the same slow, crushing, doomy guitars with bluesy touch of Sabbath. It sounds heavy enough to devour you into its choking strangehold. The vocalist sounds as he is himself is Chris Reifert. You can almost touch those similar growls and high pitched screams when he goes berserk. The production is a bit iffy but its quite alright considering its a demo and almost all instruments and just listenable. And "In The Grip Of Winter" is probably one of my favourite Autopsy covers. Watch out for these guys and the band does need some attention so that they get signed and release a full length which I can hardly wait for.

To sum it up this "Epitaph of Nauseation" is like three unreleased tracks from Mental Funeral" unleashed upon you after 16 years.
The tape is long sold out from Detest records but the band may still have some copies left with them. The first demo as well as two rehearsal tracks are provided free on their website, The first demo is more like your usual death metal.

Other bands to be checked out on Detest Records - Miasmal, Abhorrot, Stench of Decay, and more recently the finnish maniacs "Ascended". I hope you guys have heard of the demo "The Art Of Necromancy" by Ascended which was released on Enucleation Records. They are coming up with their new EP "Temple of Dark Offerings" which will also be available on Detest Records.

-EyehateDoG
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