"They're Not with the Headliners... Yet"
Swelling Repulsion - "Fatally Misguided"
Big Bear Buchko

For anyone that has ever embraced the inevitable sunburn of a weekend-long metal festival or clutched a single day $8.00-a-ticket ticket for 40 bands of incomprehensible logos, you quickly learn the methodology behind the hierarchy; the young, bitchy band that’ll probably break up on the drive home – they’ll be towards the beginning, and the biggest name, better-known “headliner” bands will be all lumped together at the end. It’s a slow and treacherous build in quality that, if done correctly, becomes the kind of brutal, inelegant, high-intensity orgasm that we’ve all come to anxiously expect… and silently appreciate in our own way. It lets you know who to pay attention to throughout the day, and how late into the line-up you can arrive. (I’m not showing up at 9am for your little cousin’s black metal band – fuck him and fuck you for asking me.)

Swelling Repulsion is not an early evening band. They’re not with the headliners yet(!), but with the follow up to their first full-length album - "2021’s The Severed Path" - Swelling Repulsion can’t help but encourage you to watch their career, as Palpatine would say, “with great interest." Because as you listen to their new record – the recently released "Fatally Misguided" – you hear what could certainly be a bright future for the trio from Fort Collins, Colorado, making "Fatally Misguided" the "Schizophrenia" of their Sepultura catalogue.

The first genuine accolade of "Fatally Misguided" goes to a frequently overlooked mechanic of the end result: the mixers and the producer. This is a well-mixed and excellently produced album. It hits you in such an unexpected way; the vocals are neither overbearing nor distant; the instruments neither push nor pull their focus; the drums are blended wonderfully into the surrounding background; it is nearly perfect in its balance. For someone that grew up running in the cassette-tape-demo hell that was the underground metal scene of the mid-to-late-1990s, the ability to really take in the experience of a quality progressive death recording is a marvelous thing. (25 years ago, this album would’ve sounded like it was recorded in a bathroom adjacent to their practice space.) High marks here for production.

Another strong case for either the production value or the creative foresight and attention to detail of the band (maybe both – probably both) is the attempt at a running cohesion in the overall record. There is very clearly a beginning – an atmospheric and melodic introduction to a punishing slog known as “Vanquished.” And there is very clearly an end – an opus of complexity and shifting values named “Sullen Light of Expired Stars,” which stands at… does that fucking say seven and a half minutes?!

Why.
Why you do this.
I’m looking at you.
Why.

Anyway… as I said, there is definitely a beginning, and “Vanquished” is a hell of a way to start an album. The inclusion of the beginning vocal inhale is an elegant and perfectly minor touch that frames the upcoming gut punch of the full band kicking in all at once. The vocals continue a punishing, chunky rhythm throughout, and the energy of the track reminds you why bands that work their craft in a shitty practice space in the bad part of town will always be superior to manufactured studio metal.

From there, we go into “Basking in the Fumes of Failure,” the first of the songs to make me actively take notice of the drummer. You can hear the wrist fracture coming in how quick he hammers the snare on every count; it’s the kind of carpal tenacity that hard metal demands and the ladies just love. (Fuck more musicians, girls, there’s a critical lack of groupies out there, and the low-quality of drugs these days is making a lot of us wonder why we do this at all.) But Swelling Repulsion knows what it’s doing in the initial rise of this album – as the melodic symphony becomes a violent onslaught, so too do we shift here, to something much more technically complex and impressive. It’s the moment at a live show where everyone suddenly focuses on the guitar player instead of the singer - you know the one.

But this is where cohesion leaves us. My biggest complaint about "Fatally Misguided" is its choice of track order, which is not something that anyone piecemealing their content or seeing them live will ever have to consider. The vocals are consistent throughout until about the 4th track, which – for an 8 track release – is half the friggen album. But here, within the confines of the “Scared Doom,” is the first time you’re introduced to overlapping vocal highs from a sudden and unexpected 2nd singer. And while his presence on the first few tracks is either greatly diminished or entirely non-existent, it’s his presence on every track that follows that begs you to wonder…                    so, wait, was he there the entire time? Why wasn’t he in the earlier ones? Did his mic arrive from Amazon halfway through recording and that’s why he’s only on the later bits?                 And I appreciate the juxtaposition of conflicting vocal tones, I do, but I can’t help but feel the flow of the album to have been just a bit better had his involvement been sprinkled in more spaciously. I wanna hear ya and then not hear ya, and then after a break, I wanna hear ya again, that’s what I want. But… that’s an old man bitch and shouldn’t take away from the total sum.

My other old man bitch is about the song “Failure.” It is the stand-out track of this production. It has dramatic tempo changes, great variation in complexities, powerful highs and crushing lows, strong and confident instrumental breaks – if they were looking for a lead single, this is it. So… WHY THEN IS IT THE 7th GODDAMN TRACK ON THE RECORD?! It’s buried all the way at the bottom – 7 of 8 – it’s the next to last damn song! This is B-side territory, not where you expect to find the most exemplary representation of the album as whole. I swear, I feel like Fatally Misguided was a record designed for 'shuffle' mode. Start with “Vanquished,” into “Fumes of Failure,” skip ahead to “Failure,” back to “Doom” and then just jump around from there, so long as you end on the aforementioned “Sullen Light of Expired Stars,” the designated closer of the album, because it’s here that the band truly goes for broke.

What I have to say about “Sullen Light of Expired Stars” is going to sound negative at first, but trust me when I say that’s honestly not how it’s intended. There is a lot to the song “Sullen Light of Expired Stars,” including an elaborate display of several very enjoyable guitar riffs that, on their own, would’ve made a great other song. And when an album like American Idiot carries with it 13 full-ass tracks, it’s then that you can afford to have a “Jesus of Suburbia” here or there. But Fatally Misguided ends after only 8 songs, not only leaving you feeling like you want more, but actually feeling like there should have been more. Some of the ever-changing dichotomy between the aggressive and passive segments of “Sullen Light” is so well-done, you can’t help but think they could have made another four or five songs out of it. But then we end like we began, with the same atmospheric and melodic guitars and ambience, now as an outro. Their slot in our proverbial $8.00-a-ticket concert has ended.

In all, Fatally Misguided is a good representation of a band that would be closer to the headliner spot than many others. They’re not there yet, but they’d probably be the band right before someone like Job for a Cowboy or maybe Hatebreed took the stage. It’s a good album for the genre, but for me, it sells an excitement about what this band could become in later outings. They’re a relatively new formation – only 8 years old – which gives them plenty of time to grow and flourish and develop their sound as a collaborative ensemble. With Fatally Misguided, they make an effort, and they stand their ground. It’s not perfect, but for a nice angry drive to the office, I have to recommend it. They’re definitely Swelling something of mine, but Repulsion ain’t it.

That came out wrong.