Swarm Of The Lotus

This is great stoner metal, heavy, dark, sludgy, even technical in some places...except for the vocals which are in the newer hardcore vein. "Wow, sounds like Mastodon then?" you might ponder, well, sort of, kinda, ok, yeah, let's go with that or Eyehategod. I really dig the tunes on this album, the music is killer, but what's with all the yelling and screaming? If the vocals were a bit more melodic and less agonizing then I could really get into this, but it's really grating after awhile. Don't any of these new bands know how to sing? Enough ranting about the vocals though, you've got to check this one out even if only for the music. Good stuff. - Absolutmetal.com

Swarm of the Lotus – When White Becomes Black

Swarm of the Lotus reminds me of an Army seargent, yelling at his recruits for the first time. Maybe it’s because I accidentally left the stereo in my car turned up too loud, but when I slid White White Becomes Black in for the first time I actually jumped when the first track erupted into my car.

Hailing from Baltimore, Swarm of the Lotus’s debut disc is the definition of “intense”. Metalcore to the bone, tracks like “Committed to Ash”, “Seeng Truth” and “Burn Autumn Burn” explode with pain and anger. I don’t know why I should single those three tracks out; none of the eleven sounds found within could be mistaken for easy-listening ballads.

White White Becomes Black reminds me of Neurosis, without all the build up. Where a Neurosis song might be ten minutes, with eight minutes of build up followed by two minutes of fury, Swarm of the Lotus skips the build up and gets right to the fury. Most of the songs on the album don’t have discernable beginnings or endings (or choruses, for that matter). Tracks like “Cherry Chocolate Salamander” and “Episode Infinity” both begin and end with a bang.

White White Becomes Black is very relentless. Maybe it’s because my son is a member of the “terrible two’s” club, but after a while I just began tuning the disc out due to sensory overload. Much like those first day Army recruits, after being yelled at for half an hour it all began running together.

Violent, aggressive, and very very intense, Swarm of the Lotus’ debut album is the sonic equivalent of an hour long tornado. While it may take you a couple of listenings to make it through the entire disc, the payoff makes it all worth while. White White Becomes Black is bottled up east coast aggression, pure and simple. - Review-o-matic.com

Album Review
Score 8.2 Written by Chris SessionsPublished on 2/20/2004
In my last review I made a prediction about "the next big thing"...singsongy metalcorish rock in the vein of cleanly sung Killswitch Engage, and how I felt like I was already tired of it even before I have heard it a lot. Well this time I feel like I am reviewing the "the next real thing", which is to say the style of metal and hardcore that will lack the appeal of the lovely voiced metalcore acts because of its roughness, but which contains the depth and movement the lovelies may lack. The bands that deliver this are not necessarily sound alikes, but they share a certain set of ingredients that make them heartier than many of their peers. Burst, Mastodon, Burnt by the Sun, Meatjack, and now Swarm of the Lotus seem joined by this mystery recipe.

I come from a background of a certain alternative radio station here in Utah that would play cutting edge metal and punk and hardcore - the real indy shit. It's the place where I first heard Metallica, Slayer, Exodus, Venom...and bands like Tad, Bad Religion, Swiz and Fugazi. That last act, Fugazi struck me immediately as one of the best American bands I had ever heard. And I hear a lot of Fugazi in the best acts with a hardcore leaning that have been crossing my desk lately. Does a real connection exist? Couldn't tell ya, but whether real or imagined it's meant as a compliment.

With SOTL you get a band where the drums play a major part in the way the compositions turn out, taking every opportunity to play with the rhythms and pacing, creating a latticework of alternately jazzy-funky piledriving beats with pure Zeppelinesque steroid bashing. The riffs and chords surround this structure with a caustic style that maintains the edge perfectly. The vocalist is relentless in his style of screaming desperation.

The songs themselves are written with the crushing changeup in mind, setting you up with bouncy riffs, then baseball batting your head with sudden sludgy funked out passages. Probably my favorite example of this is From Embers, a spacey-yet-down-to-earth monster of a song. It plays with volume and intensity the way the government plays with facts and figures; fast and loose. The gripe here is that the songs are longish and you can become numbed to the effects after a while, even though the group does a good job of mixing things up.

The production is basement fresh. The drums sound enormous and biological, the guitars are acidic and crunchy, and the vocals are mixed at about the perfect level, neither dominating nor being dominated. Once again, the band is the heaviness, not the studio.

Bottom Line: A damn good record that, while a little long, is perfectly good for it, the quality of performance and production makes it worth the bits that drag. I hope this is more of a beginning exploration of what this style of metal and hardcore has to offer than the whole shebang. I can hear so much potential in it and in the bands that seem to be playing it, I will become very bitter if they don't push the ideas to unexpected places in the future. There is a wealth of possibilities here, and some great acts to find it. As for Swarm of the Lotus, I highly recommend it. - Metalreview.com

Album Review
Written by Patrick DawsonPublished on 7/12/2005 Score 10 Sessions called it early in his review of When White Becomes Black and credit must be given where it is due. Swarm of the Lotus is the next real thing. All the possibility and potential expressed on the previous outing has been realized this time around.

Wickedly barbed and ready to extract answers with pain, The Sirens of Silence is monumental and intimidating in the same fashion that makes Converge albums so worthwhile. The knack for maintaining a cohesive and captivating riff across often complex and possibly distracting structure is admirable. Tortuous like their forefathers, strident and beautifully noisy like Today is the Day, and unafraid of some bravado now and then ala-Neurosis; the structural guessing game of this work is half of what makes it so enthralling. The other part of that equation is the brutally honest performances given by the musicians themselves. The intensity of the vocals and the surge of instrumentation during the crescendo of “Snowbeast” is all the proof anyone needs of their sincerity.

The songs ebb and flow in violent un-chartable tidal patterns; the world this band inhabits clearly has one too many moons. Just as things become tranquil or ponderously heavy, the candor and bent of the music slaps back like a virulent paroxysm. The manifestations are recurrent but there is no way to fight the infection. Giving in and accepting The Sirens’ bodily domination is the only answer, but the resulting symbiosis is anything but negative.

The Swarm is dangerously tidy in the meticulous way they go about bucking convention. Hail Kurt Ballou for his part in capturing the band’s efforts. The man’s touch on knobs and faders is responsible for a godlike masterpiece of soundcraft. The Sirens of Silence is captured immaculate and acrid in all its caustic splendor. His trademark white noise is used sparingly throughout and control over frequency and depth is absolute. A spacious and natural recording allows the perfectly executed narrative nature of the percussion to be master of the ship as the album unfolds. Every aspect of the mix has only improved since the last time this band committed ideas to tape.

Where their previous effort tended to be needlessly chaotic at times, here there is a primal energy that seems to temper the urge to lash out without reason. Witness the erosion of stone personified in “Nightmare Paint” or the way the dynamic dual vocals and harmonics in “Yan Hou” display a steadfast mastery of artistic vision. Logical progression is the name of the game and Swarm of the Lotus has taken the next step…nay…gigantic leap; landing soundly in the upper echelons of the style and of metal in general. I would even go so far as to say ahead of the pack. What you couldn’t get from the intensity of Ion Dissonance and what Isis did not drive home forcefully enough has been served up by a hungry and talented band. Not splitting the difference in a timid fashion as other post hardcore acts have done, but with a confident stride forward clearing the way for a new level of innovation and respect for a style of music that still has much to offer. - Metalreview.com

Metalcore. It's oversaturated and has become the joke of the extreme metal world. With countless bands harping the same chord progression and over using breakdowns, the scene has become stale to the point of self-parody. Then we have bands like Swarm of the Lotus. Formed in Baltimore in 1998, the band has ushered in a dense concoction of noisy metalcore. With their first cd "When White Becomes Black" making headway in the underground circuits, the band was poised to hit their stride with their next album. That album is "The Sirens of Silence".

"The Sirens of Silence" shows a change up from most metalcore. The sound combines the noise of Converge, density of Meshuggah, the underwater feel of Mastodon, and the dissonance of Neurosis. With these elements, Swarm of the Lotus comprise an epic, sludgy groove with chaos boiling and portruding all along the surface of the songs. The guitars chug with interesting riffing patterns and are far more technical than most other metalcore acts. They also jump around the neck quite a bit and constantly engage in sorrowfull yet powerfull melodies that drive the songs. The drums are quite noteworthy as well. They break from the usual "jog" and play with more of a Tool meets Slayer sort of vibe. The bass isn't anything too special, however, it does earn points for standing out in the mix and up holding the overall groove of the album. Vocals are pretty stadard. Singer Peter Maturi uses a Jens Kidman like bark throughout most of the cd, but sounds a little more emotional than Jens' typical robotic screaming. Also, the band implement singing once in a while, though it's more droning and adding to the hoplessness of the sound as a whole.

As for the songs themselves, they hold up quite well. The album kicks off with a 1 2 3 punch with "Hookworm" and "The Great Maquerade" being great headbangers, and "Call to Abandon", one of my personal favorites, posing an epic dirge that recalls the days of AEnima era Tool. Also, songs like "Jackie G" and "Vertigo" are good complements to the band eratic since of structure. Overall though, becuase of the whole mood of the album, it benefits more from being played all the way through than the individual songs.

The cd isn't without its flaws, however. The album relies too much on chugging riffs. Although they are much more complex than the usual "jun-jun-jun", there are many times when the band could have used a more melodic passage to drive the songs. Also, some songs tend to either take to long to build up ("The Insect Trust Fund"), or don't really go anywhere at all ("Needles of Knives"). However, this is more due to that overall format of the album, more than direct songwriting.

In conclusion, Swarm of Lotus' "The Sirens of Silence" is a great metalcore album for people who are sick of metalcore albums. The epic since of writing and focus on dynamics are a great substitute for those tired with the same rehash you hear day after day. For those who are willing to take a risk and spend time with the album, you will be rewarded with a well written record from a band with a bright future.



Pros:

- Good musicianship
- Haunting atmosphere
- Progressive songwriting
- Intense and/or chaotic throughout



Cons:

- Somewhat repetitive
- May be too similar for those burnt out on metalcore
- If you don't pay attention, you'll be lost



Recommended Tracks:

- "Hookworm"
- "Call to Abandon"
- "The Great Masquerade"
- "Jackie G"
- "Vertigo"



Band:

- Peter Maturi: Guitar, Vocals
- Christopher Csar: Bass, Vocals
- Cole Crickenberger: Guitar, Vocals
- Jon John Michaud: Drums



Overall score: A strong 4/5.
- Sputnikmusic.com

By Bret McCabe | Posted 7/13/2005
Gone are the purely technical runs and wonk of Swarm of the Lotus’ 2004 When White Becomes Black, replaced by a healthy interest in diverse menace. The six-minute “Call to Abandon” is emblematic of the band’s looser approach and a great addition to the SOTL arsenal: A patiently roiling drums and bass neck-breaker occasionally erupts into a bristling chorus before welcoming full-on calamity at the five-minute mark. It’s a chest-punch sculpted with attention to shifting dynamics and building throb out of specific details, not just dead-sprint riffs with the volume pegged, and it’s a wonderfully sludgy new element to a band that already had speed metal down pat.

Murky guitars add a lasciviously evil streak to “The Great Masquerade” that creates a wobbly counterpoint to its classic thrash spine. A fanfare of pulsating guitar strafes over high-hat and bass-drum hyperactivity in the streamlined complexity of “Yan Hou,” a multipart beat-down as baroquely intricate as anything by Nile. And in the fabulously named “The Insect Trust Fund,” SOTL hatches an opening salvo of a riff pattern and formidably meaty surge on par with Mastodon’s “March of the Fire Ants.”

Even better, these chunky rockers break up the breathless pace and flow of Sirens, which spotlights its full-throttle thrash much better. “Vertigo” and “Jackie G” provide much needed adrenaline bursts to the album’s churning running time and don’t feel like just another three-minute wad shoot. And though the band hasn’t mastered everything—an almost eight-minute doom dirge such as “House at the Bottom of the Sea” is prolly best left to actual Scandinavians—with The Sirens of Silence, Swarm of the Lotus considerably steps up its game. - The Baltimore City Paper