|
You've
heard of the big boys VNV Nation and Apoptygma Berzerk, you love their
well crafted songs and addictive beats? Well, let me introduce you to
Swarf, they are going to be up there with those two!
I first saw this band playing live at the Requiem goth/industrial night
at Trillians rock bar in Newcastle and was blown away by their power and
that voice!
Where this band differs from the usual ebm/synth pop bands is in the
vocal department. No distortion, no effects, just an amazing singing
voice care of front woman Liz Green, and wow, what a voice!
The title track on the CD is 'Fall', once you hear this song, it will be
with you forever. Sounding quite similar to 'Kathy's song' by
Apoptygma Berzerk. This is dancey synthy pop at it's best, driving
beats, bleepy electronics and an amazing vocal performance. It
would go down a storm in any club, it is just made to dance to!
Next up we have 'Vision', this song slows it down just slightly. It
takes a few plays to get used to, but again, once it's in your head it
stays there.
They played this at this years Whitby Gothic Weekend, and assured the
crowd that the lyrics had nothing to do with Pigeons! Listen to this and
you'll see why!
Third track is 'Sorrow', this is the slowest song on the CD, but shows
how versatile this band really is. They can do fast dancey songs, but
they can do slow thoughtful songs equally as well.
Portishead comes to mind when listening, very atmospheric and almost
trip-hop like in it's dreamy beats.
The other 4 tracks on the cd are mixes of the title track. Bands tend to
do this to fill up space, but not in this case. Each mix by other Wasp
factory artists brings something completely new to the song, not just a
slight change.
The 'Chaosphere Remix' is a full on stomping techno dancefloor filling
version of the song, all pounding bass and acid bleeps.
The 'Falls apart remix' by Exitboy is my favourite mix out of the 4 and
it's frankly frightening! Sinister distorted voices start the track,
when suddenly a gabba style bassline appears and attempts to blow your
speakers.
The vocals are still there but are very faint until the chorus when they
are distorted and looped. Your neighbours will love this, but not as
much as the dancefloors!
Tarantella Serpentine are next up on the remixing duties with their
suitably titled, 'Dirty little fucker' remix.
Removing the vocals, and introducing robotic sounding samples to the
mix.
When this kicks off it's probably the heaviest version of the song.
Bearing absolutely no resemblance to the original. They've almost done
away with the tune and replaced it with bass so big your windows are
soon rattling.
'Freudstein' remix by Freudstein. Once again, we've got distorted
vocals, and so much happening in the tune it's difficult to keep up
with, there's bleeps, organ samples, drum loops galore and you even get
a bit of guitar right at the end!
They won the battle of the bands at Whitby earlier this month (we voted
for them!) and they've just been added to the line up of next years
prestigious Eurorock festival in Belgium.
This is just a taster of what Swarf are capable of, when they release a
full length album it's going to be an absolute monster! Until then, buy
this CD and go and see them live, you won't regret it!
|
