SWAMP COFFIN SHARE VIDEO FOR ’THIS WAS ALWAYS GOING TO END IN WAR’
5th September 2024On 29th September 2021, the day before the launch of debut full-length Noose Almighty, Swamp Coffin bass player Martyn White attempted to take his own life. Following his treatment and recovery, shortly before the album’s release in November that year, Martyn’s father and vocalist/guitarist Jon Rhodes’ mother-in-law both passed away within hours of each other.
This is the backdrop to which Swamp Coffin started to write their heaviest, most powerful songs yet. Now the band are back with their crushing new album, ‘Drowning Glory’. The writing process was triggered by one conversation – “this band is f*cking cursed”.
On latest single ’This Was Always Going to End in War’, Jon comments,
“It doesn’t feel like anything we’ve ever done before. Simple as that. It has the relentless nastiness and bile soaked words you’d expect from us but squeezed in to a hate-filled package less than four minutes long with some hardcore swagger thrown in for good measure. All the double kick, a bass tone that could melt teeth and lyrics I can’t wait to be spat back at us. It’s gloriously vicious.
My only goal when writing TWAGTEW was that I didn’t want anybody to have even the slightest chance to catch their breath, whether it’s the audience or us on stage. Playing it live recently has confirmed it’s vocally, mentally and physically draining to perform but it’s been incredibly rewarding seeing crowds stagediving and generally kicking the shit out of each other to it. It feels like the perfect soundtrack to a busted lip.”The songs on Noose Almighty and 2019 EP Flatcap Bastard Features were motivated by the tragic death of vocalist/guitarist Jon Rhodes’ brother-in-law in 2017, on the day their first demo was to be recorded, and the house fire 9 months later that left him and his family homeless.
The topics those records covered, men’s mental health, grief, and disenchantment, are built on and explored further than ever before on ‘Drowning Glory’, the lyrical content as honest and uncompromising as the riffs they’re set to. Jon adds,
“It feels like a relief to be getting Drowning Glory out into the world. This album finally puts to bed a lot of the grief and trauma that has hung over this band since its inception. The fact we’ve done it with the best songs we’ve ever written is the icing on the cake.
It took a year from the release of Noose Almighty for us to even think about writing more music. The anger that fuelled both that album and the Flatcap EP just wasn’t there, everything that happened in late 2021 just left me numb to the idea of writing songs. Taking some time off really allowed my feelings to stew and when the motivation was finally there, all that pain I’d suppressed came flooding out. Memories of events from the last eight years, that I thought I’d come to terms with, all suddenly resurfaced and I think that’s evident in how relentlessly heavy these new songs are.”
The riffs are bigger, the grooves heavier and lean further into their death metal and hardcore influences. This is a band baring their souls in a way only they know how – fuzz, volume, and screaming.
In the nearly three years since the release of Noose Almighty Swamp Coffin has gone from strength to strength. By bringing their down-tuned sludge misery to stages across the country, the Rotherham sludge trio have recruited members to their Bastard Club along the way, opening for the likes of Obituary, Crowbar, Conan, and Bongzilla and laying seige to Bloodstock, Doomlines and Reality Unfolds.
Now the architects of The World’s Slowest Wall Of Death have returned with seven slabs of uncompromising, emotional metal.
‘Drowning Glory’ is released on 27th September via APF Records. Pre-order the album now – https://www.apfrecords.co.uk/albums/drowning-glory
Swamp Coffin live dates w/ A Horse Called War:
12th September – Rotherham, The Bridge Inn/The Hive
13th September – Leicester, The Metal Monocle
14th September – London, The Dev
21st September – Birmingham, Dead Wax Digbeth
