Pressrelated introduction
A. Steen | J. Folkesson | T. Bertilsson
On Switchblade´s fourth album, the Swedish three-piece evokes a monolithic sludgy aura with a sound which is shimmering
with harsh resonance. What draws these two numbered, yet nameless tracks together is a shared sense of deconstructed
momentum and an oppressive, crushing heaviness which is nonetheless executed with a certain degree of melodic decorum
and manages to somehow be graceful in it’s sloth. Adding to the bleakness and beauty of this album is the guestvocals
by "E" of WATAIN and Mattias Friberg of LOGH
TRACKLIST:
01. 19:30
--. [07:05]
02. 16:45
The album was recorded by Mattias Oldén at Mission Hall Studio in August 2005 and some additional
recording of "E"´s vocals was done at Eriksdal, Stockholm in Septermber. The album was then mastered at Masters
of Audio by Henrik Jonsson in October.
"Staggering under the stool... under the load... it's reaching forward. But little is there to grasp. Tripped on a barge, in the breaking and broken ice, the likes of which inquest have not seen weeks.
Is that a shining, or simply mist? Well, it's groaning and reluctantly actualizes at all. Brackish corners amiable ramble and rumble. The streaking fades, to shade. Is it the venerable? Perhaps its just
the nerves. Soiled and drawn from the encroaching mist, or is it just shining?"
- STEPHEN O´MALLEY
"Somehow the wide open spaces of the west seem to have grafted themselves onto the surfaces of the northern scandinavian hills and forests. Traces of the prairie winds whistle through the pines and blow
cold orations upon the heads of those still sleeping. In the state between sleep and dream, ghostly locomotives rumble past in the night and gaunt faces with sunken shining eyes emerge from and recede
back into the darkness of the open windows on this (non)passenger train..... The creaks and groans of this massive heaving beast send shudders through the hollow chests of those who's dreams are ripped
at the seams and singed on the borders by the passing of this formidable, yet lartgely undefinable PRESENCE. Upon waking from troubled sleeps, heads are still crowded by the sense of something
that was there but cannot be traced back to it's origins, nor forwards to it's ultimate destination. The subdued hum of heavy nocturnal wanderings recedes slowly, but the "victim" notices that the angles
of their dwellings look somehow different, and the aural space they occupy at any given time is filled with the arctic echoes of the bellowing behemoth that haunted their lightless nights past,
and future nights looming...."
- AARON TURNER
"Waking up floating naked above a desecrated landscape, where thousands of transient beings mourn the loss of everything known, where now the forgotten shall inherit the earth, sad children dressed in refuse,
chew on earth, dribbling tears into the muddied ground, insect carcasses lay in heaps, ready for burial by the insane, who now rule through divine right, clouds of silver and malice pour scorn upon the dead,
weeping mothers rub gravel into their hands, their mourning cries singeing the wings off ravens, fires burn in eyes that refuse to see all there is to see. Timber houses shaped like sarcophagus' burn in the
eternal night, scarecrows of bark and newspaper come to life in vacant streets, bleeding charcoal and swarms of miserable black ants that feed on the corpses tied to eternity by threads of marrow. Hoards of
black limbed toads parade through fields of discarded lungs, pestilence laughs in side streets, while sombre men in top hats and shoes of skin and feather chase down broken dogs, tearing the rancid flesh with
their rotting fingers, digging for a treasure that howls into the black wind. Whispering giants chant from afar, their broken rumblings lifting shards of soil that bury entire townships in a heaving miasmic roar.
Planets die on distant horizons while the meek commit genocide in burrows near the centre of the earth, scrabbling in futility towards an end with out end. Ravens fill the air with wings of stone, beating death
and mayhem on populations of grievance, droppings of granite and brimstone pour onto forgotten vicious mountain ranges spawning flash fires that consume with gleeful certainty, dying behemoths collapse, frothing
beasts of burden hurl them selves off the highest cliffs, exploding onto ancient ravines like weapons of the apocalypse, filling the dry river beds with the ancient lifeblood of damnation, to flood all that is
known, to drown, to swallow whole, everything from here and now and onwards into an eternal black silence."
- SELDON HUNT
"Nœeeee....spola framåt nu."
- HANS PETTERSON, Nutidsfilosof
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Read the studio diary kept during the recording of the new album
Tour dates
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