Red Swamp “Desert Drive” Album Review + Stream…

Written by

Red Swamp

Desertdrive – Released April 20, 2018

Reviewed by Terry “The Ancient One” Cuyler

“Rollin’ Balls”

Line Up:
Gergely (Greg) Kovács (vocals)
Zoltán Bereczki (guitar, vocals)
András Makay (guitar)
Márton Veress  (drums)
Sándor Szabó (bass)

Tracklist:
Waste
Crossed
Desertdrive
The Emptiest
Leech
Castaways
Rediscover
Queen of The Dirt

 

 

Review:
Hello once again my fellow tasters. Here at Taste Nation LLC – A Music Consortium we strive to bring fans and musicians of all genres together. To do that we scour the internet and our local music scenes for music submissions by fans and bands from around the world. One of our most recent submissions comes from a band called Red Swamp.

After downloading the band’s 2nd album Desertdrive and adjusting the sound settings to rock, I got an earful of ‘Hell Yeah!’ Wanting to know more about the band I went to their Facebook page were I learned the band hails from Hungary’s capitol city Budapest and the names of the members and little else. I could have just went with that and this review would just be a short blurb about some Hungarian metal band but the music sounded to good to let my review be a blurb. So I decided to contact them and ask them a bit about their band as I am not at all familiar with the Eastern European metal scene.

Formed in 2015 by its 3 founding members vocalist Gergely (Greg)  Kovács, guitarist // vocalist Zoltán Bereczki, and bassist Sándor Szabó, Red Swamp seemingly hit the ground running when they entered the music scene. With little more than a 3 song EP that they circulated throughout the stoner/sludge/doom music blogs and pages, they earned rave reviews. It was these earlier releases that lead to Red Swamp being 1 of 500 applicants in 5 general categories, accepted into the Talentometer (one of Hungary’s biggest musical talent competitions cultivated by the A38 Ship concert venue) and winning 1st place. With their prizes, Red Swamp hit the open road Headlining their own “Support the Habit” tour and opening for local and international bands where they played sold out shows with Karma to Burn, Clutch, and Sons of Morpheus. They have also played Hungary’s Rockmarathon twice and EFOTT where they got the audience so nuts they turned the joint into a huge mud hole. All of which resulted in the release of their debut album Tiszassippi on September 21st 2016.

After touring the Hell out of their album Tiszassippi in Hungary and Austria, Red Swamp sought to keep the momentum and went right back into song writing mode for their Sophomore album Desertdrive and recruited  Márton Veress (formerly of Pokolgép Hungary’s biggest metal band  and ex member of Chris Amott’s Armageddon, and now member of Aelonia, which is Jake Pitt of the Black Veil Brides project.) Whew!!…Now got all that out of the way I can tell you what this means to the band and their latest offering. Unlike Tiszassippi which created the basis around Red Swamp, Márton Veress’ skill has allowed the band to polish and refine its overall sound.

Band Pic

Tiszassippi was mastered by maestro Jens Borgen of Fascination Studios who is best known for his work with At The Gates, Soilwork, and Arch Enemy. Tiszassippi is the result of Red Swamps evolution as a band in the 1st year in which they developed their sound which swift current beneath a sludgy surface resulting in something that sounds akin to heavy southern rock. Thus the album title that combines the names of Hungary’s and the United State’s Mississippi rivers.

When I first heard Red Swamp I was in a bit of a conundrum. I found myself asking How do a bunch of musicians from Hungary  sound so Southern Fried?  Of course after a bit of thought I recalled the British Blues Rock scene of the late 60’s and 70’s and came upon my answer. Influenced by many different bands, Red Swamp seems to have taken a sort of VOLBEAT type of approach to Desertdrive by concentrating on catchier hooks and clear vocals backed up by harsh vocals rather than slam the listener with ten tons of sludge. While the band may attribute quite a bit of this to their new drummer I believe the addition of his skill and presence to the line-up is a huge confidence booster because it allows them to get the exact sound they want.

All in all I’d say Red Swamp did one Hell of a job. From getting their album recorded under Hungary’s acclaimed Hunnia Records, to getting the support of Hungary’s National Cultural Foundation, and the sponsorship of the Hanfoglaló music program that they used to record Desertdrive. Red Swamp’s own guitarist Zoli Bereczki mixed and mastered the album. I love all of the 8 songs on this album but, my favorite is ‘Waste’ and its music video which is a damn good introduction to the band for us Yanks here in America. All one has to do is watch it to see why its climbing the rock video charts in Hungary.

Among my other favorites are the albums title track ‘Desertdrive’ which feels sort of like a tip of the hat to VOLBEAT with Márton Veress’s bouncy drums Greg’s Anthem vocal hook “You had every piece of me except the one” backed up by Zoli’s leads and harsh vocals. While Red Swamp calls itself stoner/sludge; track ‘Castaways’ treats the listener to some thrashing guitar breakdown combined with  Sándor Szabó’s rolling bass. This is an album that is definitely worth getting on CD or vinyl and a band I would love to see come to the States.  Show Red Swamp your love and support! If you are an American Band Promoter or somebody that can make this happen, drop them a line and tell them you were sent by The Ancient One!

Alone In The Moon “Glamour Grunge” Album Review + Stream…

Written by

ALONE IN THE MOON

Glamour Grunge – Digital Download

Self Released – released June 26, 2017

Reviewed by Ric “Suisyko” Dorr

 

Formed – 2012

Location – Budapest, Hungary

Line-up
Adrian von Castlebridge: Vocal // Guitar
Simon Zoltán: Bass
Menyhárth Balázs: Drums

Previous Releases –
“Collection Of Great Generational Anthems” May 2015
“Collection of Generational Anthems” “Digital Deluxe version – March 2016

When asked to describe themselves, the band said quote “Alone in the Moon” is a rock metal trio from the exotic Budapest that mixes the rawness of punk with the seducing cliches of hard rock  and the music of the 90’s and early 00’s: from Nirvana to Deftones, from Radiohead to Kyuss, from Korn to Tool.” Enquote. With this sophomore effort, it would seem the ‘punk’ tag has been lost and it is to no detriment in this case. With the first release, ALONE IN THE MOON set the bar particularly high and the demand was such that the “Deluxe” version contained an additional 30 tracks, from instrumental versions of various songs to demo versions to everything in between.

 

Band Pic

 

With this record, they have foregone that paradigm to concentrate on the HEAVY side of things and bring forth this 26 minute opus that is SONIC in the hard-rock trappings and are even more precise in delivery and content. From opener ’27’, with the fade in guitar chord before the bass and drums hit in this almost stoner-tempo.  The sheer plush POWER rumbling out of your speakers for the first minute plus takes the bar and raises it even higher than the last release as we listen to this tale of “a beautiful anger”. The loopy soloing and non-stop pummeling your ear drums are taking in from this power-trio takes you along at a clip that is comfortable and static at the same time. ‘The Jury’ is a faster pace and equally punishing with the bass guitar combo that is driven even further with that drumline that keeps everything moving hard and fast compelling you to keep pace as you hear the extra clicks and sticks flowing back and forth over that chunky guitar/bass progressions, moving along in response.

‘#MyLifeIsBetterThanYours’ opens with an ultra-fuzzed out bass line, accompanied by a closed-hit hat tick before that vocal begins the diatribe here about “Beautiful People” that is almost tongue-in-cheek. There is a sneer that follows that bass-hook that never stops in it’s gravitas pull, where ‘Be A Woman’ is even faster in pace and has that almost-punk attitude in delivery and content, heavy and fast chord progressions driving this one right to the edge. ‘Body Police’ is one of those songs that will be an ‘earworm’ as it gets instantly stuck in your brain with it’s chugging engine that screams like a V-8 with the power of nitro fully activated.

Then there are the between-track insertions that are all named, no seeming correlation between the inserts and the songs prev/after and the relevance of each is unique and makes you pay attention, even if just to say “What the fuck was that?” from ‘Office Rockstar’ to ‘Daily Private Minutes’ and they all suit this album perfectly.

The stand-out track on this one for ME, is closing song ‘Recluse’. Opening with a solo guitar, before this tome of ‘pulling away from people” gets rolling and the solo section alone has enough bravado that you can’t help but smile as the notes soar and dive all around you.

Rarely is a second record anywhere close to being as good as the first release and with “Glamour Grunge”, ALONE IN THE MOON has completely surpassed what the first album established. Get it as soon as you can, share with every person in your plane of existence, support them ‘live’ if you get the chance and keep it LOUD!!

Picture Collage