There is no way the album title is meant to foreshadow what’s on the coming horizon. However, Amongst The Low And Empty (Century Media Records) accurately describes Signs Of The Swarm’s newest release. Lacking in ingenuity or inspiration, the deathcore purveyors recycle a small handful of techniques – over-exaggerated marble mouth, sparsely timed drum hits – to muster a record that has value as something intense and heavy, but decidedly not something ground-breaking by any means.
Following 2019’s Global Warning debut, Deathcore visionaries To The Grave continue their activist-minded foray with Director’s Cuts (Unique Leader Records), a forty-four-minute escapade that builds on the band’s mission to “expose a societal and environmental hell on earth,” per the press release.
As I was sampling the new barn-burner from Distant, the lethal vocals featured on ‘Plaguebreeder’ actually scared off my fiance (as in she left the room, not that she gave back the ring!).