“From the other side of the Atlantic comes the debut release from the United Kingdom’s Swallowing, titled, Songs for the Saved. As a whole, Songs for the Saved takes a drastically minimalist approach to everything from featuring two needlessly lengthy songs, all the way to the drawn out repetitiveness of many parts of each song. In some instances, these sections can stretch for as long as eight to ten minutes, to the point where you will find yourself wondering how much thought could really have been put into the songwriting.
You won’t have to look very hard to find evidence of the complacency that persists on this album as it comes right out the gates on the first track titled “The Mother.” A mix of samples run for over two minutes before a single note is even played, and while the band itself shows a hint of possibilities with a brief thunderous intro, this is almost immediately transitioned into a noisy sludge fest of hypnotic drums, tinny feedback, and vocals that are just plain horrible.
Although the second track on Songs for the Saved is slightly better than the first, it is still ridden with all the things that put a damper on the record in general. Overly abstract ambient noise consumes the first six plus minutes of the track before business finally picks up at ten minutes in. Unfortunately, it is far too little too late, in the case of this track, and even then you are still left feeling as if Swallowing could have easily cut the song down to five or six minutes, and made the same impact.
It is fairly easy to see that Songs for the Saved is a niche release targeted at die-hard fans of experimental noise and sludge, but if this doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, then it is probably in your best interests to steer clear of it. Even by genre standards, the release comes across as rather unimaginative in its approach, and although there are some flashes of brilliance towards the end of “The Sister,” there isn’t enough present to make it a must-listen from Swallowing by any means when compared to similar bands.”
