Swampcult – The Festival

a2459895900_10 Nowadays, you need to really scrounge the depths of your preferred metal grounds, in my case Bandcamp, to find something that is truly different and sometimes downright nasty. I’ve been on the search for one such band who has the unique sound, theme, style, the whole f*cking nine yards. It’s hard to find something like that anymore, but when such specimens do come along . . . man oh man are they ever so good. Introducing Swampcult who fits the previous description damn near perfectly, if I d say so myself. This duo comes straight from the Netherlands to present to you a sound that they themselves have decided to dub Lovecraftian metal. What is that, exactly? Well, what Swampcult have done with their debut album of “The Festival” is to take various elements of doom, black, and death metal to create this surprisingly coherent nine track album, and then add the theme of a Lovecraft story into the mix and you got something truly interesting. Imagine the most perfect soundtrack that a Lovecraft novel, in this case “The Festival”, to where it wondrously encapsulates all the horror, all the unnerving little quirks, and all the ominous atmospheres that Lovecraft was known for, and throw all that into a fitting metal outfit. You got the basic form of “The Festival” right there! Swampcult truly know with their second album how to really get underneath your skin in no time at all only to use it to their fullest advantage. If there was any “unconventional” new style of metal that I had to choose as my favorite, Swampcult’s special concoction would definitely not make my personal top. but godd*mn is it a very f*cking close second! It’s so eerie, so ominous, so disturbing, and so f*cking well executed that I can’t help but applaud the magnificent effort that is “The Festival”. I also can’t help but tell you that you should keep a close eye on these Dutch gentlemen for quite something time because I got the feeling they’ve something even more powerful brewing . . .

“The Festival” releases on October 2nd! You can pre-order the album as well as stream 2 tracks off it on Bandcamp here.

Track Listing:

  1. Chapter I – The Village
  2. Chapter II – The Old Man
  3. Chapter III – Al-Azif Necronomicon
  4. Chapter IV – Procession
  5. Chapter V – The Rite
  6. Chapter VI – The Flight
  7. Chapter VII – The Dawning
  8. Chapter VIII – The Madness
  9. Chapter IX – Epilogue – Betwixt Dream and Insanity