You know those skinny little Scandinavian sissy-boy metal bands? The ones with the corpse paint and the studded leather outfits who try to act all scary? I suspect the British brawlers and bruisers of Sex Swing could wipe the floor with the lot of them and not break a sweat.
Assuming those church-torching pussies even had the balls to take them on in the first place. Which they don’t — and surely wouldn’t once they heard the firm’s fearsome and ferocious sophomore album Type II. Between the unstoppable momentum and swaggering menace of their low-slung grooves, the imposingly noisy wall of grinding guitars and bass, the distorted, broken-megaphone sound of their vocals and their impenetrably dense no-fi production, these seven relentless displays of attitude, aggression and antagonism are the musical equivalent of being slowly stalked by a feral predator. Or at least various members of Swans, Stooges and PigsX7. But with a saxophone. Duck and cover.
THE PRESS RELEASE: “In the realms of heavy amplification and monstrous riffage, one crucial ingredient can make the difference between an outfit doggedly hammering away at their chosen art and another whose graft is alchemically transformed into something of compelling fury and primal satisfaction. That ingredient is malevolence, pure and simple; the sense that something authentically vicious and debauched is going on at the root of the racket assaulting the sensibilities.
Needless to say, Sex Swing — the London-based group whose mercurial and uncompromising onslaught now sees its second iteration to the wider world — have no shortage of this elixir. Since their foundation in 2014, this rogues gallery of luminaries of the UK underground have consistently proven to be capable of projecting vibrations that transcend and usurp any idea of the sum of their component parts.
It is true that they’ve clocked up notable experience sparking tinnitus with everyone from Mugstar and Bonnacons Of Doom (bassist Jason Stoll) to Dethscalator (vocalist Dan Chandler and drummer Stuart Bell) and from Earth (guitarist Jodie Cox, who also introduced keyboard player Ollie Knowles to the melee) to a dizzying variety of endeavours from the paint-stripping skronk of Dead Neanderthals to the righteous ire of Idles (all via saxophonist Colin Webster).
This mighty monument of swagger and malice also sees fit to add a certain amount of glitter to the trademark grit this time around … the rolling grooves and mantric hypnosis here boast a newfound structure and a feline sleekness fresh and unusual for this pugilistic outfit, just as Chandler’s brooding presence disguises a twisted lyricism.”
