Silence The Swamps Readies Debut Full-Length Release
After a three year process of songwriting and technical tweaks culminated in a final “Hail Mary” play during the post-production process, Silence The Swamps are ready to unveil their debut full-length album Will-O’-the-Wisp this Thursday.
The Calgary based trio, comprised of longtime friends Cam Jonze, Dylan Sutton, and Brendan Toft, formed in the summer of 2016 following an impromptu jam session. They began writing songs almost immediately, and spent that winter honing their unique fusion of classic horror punk, grunge, and surf rock.
According to Sutton and Toft, the writing for their full-length was already underway when the group released their debut self-titled EP in March 2017.
“We probably had like three songs really organized in the bag,” says Sutton.
“Yeah, because we played three songs at that EP release show that weren’t on the EP, so yeah, it’s been from March 2017 up until January 10th [2020],” says Toft.
Production on Will-O’-the-Wisp was halted after drummer and vocalist Jonze briefly moved and the group went on hiatus.
“We had everything written, and I think it was recorded too and pretty well mixed, and then Cam moved out to B.C. for we weren’t sure how long,” says Sutton.
“It turned out to be not too bad, but there was a lull where we were inactive and not sure what was going to happen.”
When Jonze returned and the writing was completed, the group then shifted their focus to the post-production process. Whereas the debut EP was mixed and mastered by Jonze, who has a background in audio engineering, this time around they wanted to bring new expertise to the mastering process.
“It’s nice to get a few different ears listening to it too, to take your biases out,” says Sutton.
After Jonze did a preliminary master the album was sent to Kirill Telichev, a local producer who’s worked with groups like The Dudes, Free the Cynics, and The Torchettes.
“He kind of took the album from where we could get it to, and then put it through his compressors and so forth and put his touch to it, and then we got it back around January 2019,” says Toft.
From there the group began looking for an engineer to complete the final phase of the mastering process. It was during this time that Toft sends what he describes as a “Hail Mary message” to Canadian producer Jesse Frederick Keller, better known under the alias JFK as the bassist of Death From Above 1979 and one half of MSTRKRFT.
After hearing the album JFK agrees to take on the project.
“He’s done mastering on rock albums before as well so that was really, really cool because he’s an idol for all of us in this band,” says Toft.
“He was great about it too, like such a good guy to work with,” says Sutton.
The end result of this year-long post-production process is an album that sounds substantially better acoustically from their 2017 EP.
“There’s a big big step up from the initial EP to this one, you can just tell,” says Toft.
Fans can also expect to hear stylistic changes on the album. The core focus on horror imagery and fast, punk-inspired riffs is still there, however the group decided to branch out and experiment with elements like synths, natural hand claps, and samples from horror movies.
“It was cool that we could experiment and go above and beyond just the standard guitar, bass, drums, vocals, and a tinge of effects,” says Toft.
The members have also matured and become more experienced as songwriters, something that Sutton says adds a new layer of depth to the songs on Will-O’-the-Wisp.
“I think the writing’s gotten just better, we kind of figured out what we were doing a little bit more,” he says.
This new experimentation will continue to expand on the group’s forthcoming material, which they’ve already started writing and plan to release on two track EPs in the future.
“I think as time goes on you’ll see us branch out, and not just be pigeon-holed with the dark horror imagery,” says Toft.
“Yeah we’re not just a strict punk band, or a strict alt band,” says Sutton.
“I think we take influences from lots of things, and you have your framework of what you are, but you can definitely play on that by adding synths, or slower parts and acoustic songs on this album, which is super new for us.”
Two singles have already been released off Will-O’-the-Wisp, “Virgin Mary,” and “Once Human.”
The album officially launches on all platforms on January 9th, with an accompanying release party the following day at Broken City featuring Winnipeg band Ex Ømerta, The Ringwalds, and Saskatoon band League of Wolves.
Follow Silence The Swamps at facebook.com/silencetheswamps
Words by Jonathan Crane








