When you’re Signs of the Swarm, and the last ten years have been one big battle with PR, you can finally breathe after 2021’s impressively solid Absolvere. Shady human beings have been booted and one solid album free of allegations in, the Pittsburgh now-quartet can instead focus on being terrible for being a deathcore band. When you promise the heaviest album of your career and it’s bragging rights are based on how one big breakdown blew your producer Josh Schroeder’s1 mind, we at AMG HQ are a bit concerned. Save your tough talk for Octane Radio, champ – we ain’t outta the woods yet.
Boy, I sure hope you love breakdowns, cuz Signs of the Swarm’s got plenty for you. While Absolvere offered a nimble approach that kept the then-trio out of the swamps of despondent chugs, sixth full-length Amongst the Low & Empty offers no such reprieve. Expect Dave Simonich’s formidable roars to open hell’s gates to as many bone-crushing breakdowns as you possibly can muster. While I understand Will Ramos brought breakdowns back into the limelight with Lorna Shore’s “To the Hellfire” using that breakdown, every subsequent breakdown that slows it down again and again while the vocalist utters ungodly sounds as demonically as possible is just a blatant rip-off. Imagine, then, if a band did forty-three minutes of exactly that. Have I lost you? Bitch, I’ve lost myself. Whatever, it’s Amongst the Low & Empty.
For all the jokes I could make about the album title here, there is a hefty amount of “low” downtuned brutal abuse that can feel tasteful – when they’re not breaking down in mindless muck. The opening title track sets up exactly what to expect: punishing breakdowns interspersed with nice technical flourishes. While Simonich remains a formidable beast, when his roars and ever-so-slightly blackened rasp align with the ominous downtuned frenzy, it can take on a more animalistic quality not unlike To the Grave’s latest. The glitchy industrial tines and frantic chugs in “Tower of Torsos” and “Faces Without Names,” the mathy runs of “Borrowed Time,” the groove that bleeds through “Between Fire & Stone” and closer “Malady,” and the stunning solo and epic synths of “Dreamkiller” and “Echelon” are all scattered moments of interest throughout. “Shackles Like Talons” features the one reprieve from mind-numbing intensity, with ambiance and blastbeats guiding the movements into beatdown and back, the shredding bouncy riffs a formidable element. “The Witch Beckons” features a similar take, Matt Heafy of Trivium appearing alongside ominously crawling riffs, giving the track a singularly maddening feel.
Throughout Amongst the Low & Empty, Signs of the Swarm offers plenty of the latter. Empty brutality in the name of breakdown overshadows nearly every positive on this album: every positive aforementioned is merely a passage that quickly evaporates in the heat of mind-numbing breakdowns. While Absolvere dealt in a tidy nimble quality that gave greater emphasis to the weighty breakdowns, Amongst the Low & Empty abandons the balance almost entirely. While the songwriting is an obvious casualty, the mix does no favors, pushing melody and technicality into the background in favor of mix and “djunzz.” The biggest takeaway is that to fully appreciate Amongst the Low & Empty, you gotta really like breakdowns, as they dominate every song except “Shackles Like Talons” and “The Witch Beckons” – although they nonetheless have their fair share. With only two mileposts and a smattering of interest in this painfully over-long forty-minute trek through knee-high downtuned muck, Amongst the Low & Empty showcases Signs of the Swarm’s priorities and warrants recommendation to very few.
The title is just a perfect metaphor for the quality of this album. It’s a low, heavy, and devastating affair, but like any good moral, an empty endeavor after a shallow pursuit. While Absolvere showcased solidly written songs that warranted repeated spins, the excessive concussion I sustained from Amongst the Low & Empty is not one I will return to. It would likely stand among genre “classics” like Chelsea Grin’s Desolation of Eden, Carnifex’s The Diseased and Poisoned, and Suicide Silence’s No Time to Bleed, but fifteen years too late compared to albums that were controversial for their mind-numbing quality at the time anyway. I get that Signs of the Swarm is on a serious journey of self-discovery, shooting their shot for musical fame rather than member notoriety, but Amongst the Low & Empty is not the path to greatness. Kudos if you got this far, dear reader, because my will to go on is back in paragraph two.
Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Century Media Records
Website: facebook.com/signsoftheswarm
Releases Worldwide: July 28th, 2023
