Photo: Paisley Mena
Los Angeles death dealers Swampbeast put everyone on notice in 2021, when they crawled out of their marshy hiding place and delivered their debut album, Seven Evils Spawned of Seven Heads, on the world. Musically, they’ve been quiet since then—until now. Their second LP, Offering of Chaos, Lamenting In The Blood of Man, is due for a May 31 release on Translation Loss and Decibel has the skinny on the first preview track, “Valley of Defilement.”
The quartet pick up where they left off on Seven Evils, though the blackened element of Swampbeast’s sound is less pronounced this go ’round. “Valley of Defilement” starts off with a high-pitched guitar squeal before launching into a direct onslaught of guitars and drums, settling into a mid-paced riff that should pull in any OSDM fan. The speed picks up from there, throwing in some frantic guitar flourishes and cavernous, reverberating vocals. “Valley of Defilement” is accompanied by a video by Chariot of Black Moth, seemingly portraying the birth or creation of an actual swampbeast.
“This album is dark, pummeling blackened death metal,” says drummer/vocalist Marecov Mena, explaining how the band has changed. “Through this sound, we choose to paint a picture of our view of reality and the unexplored truth that exists within all of us. With one of the core members of Swampbeast having moved out of state, I found myself lucky to have Mike Royal join the band when he did. At such a critical time where he had time to really learn and understand what the band was going for. Without skipping a beat after Seven Evils Spawned of Seven Heads and down a guitarist, Mike and I dove head first into writing a new album. With the purpose of pushing ourselves as musicians as well as songwriters and elevating what we had done before with Swampbeast but to an even greater extent. Not backing down from anything we’ve laid down before… but simply turning it all up to an insurmountable height.”
Enter the valley via the video below and head to Translation Loss for info on physical/digital copies.