Sludge Swamp Comp Volume II – The Swamp Thing

Here’s is the original Sludge Swamp post regarding this monster compilation, thanks to the Sludge Swamp team for letting me use it. It is followed by a Doommantia review……

Finally. After nearly a year, the Sludge Swamp is proud to bring you Volume 2 of the Swamp Comp. The popularity of volume one is evidenced by the nearly 1400 downloads.

Here is the premise behind the Swamp Comp series: inclusion is limited to unsigned bands who have sent us tracks specifically for the compilation or tracks we have culled from the never ending flow of material sent to the Sludge Swamp for posting, by unsigned bands themselves.

Volume 2 is long overdue. I started this project on my own, but it soon became clear I did not have the time needed to complete the project. After some (?) prodding from our dear Mari, I relinquished control and accepted the help she offered to complete the project. She brought along Andrea. Spiritbeggar tagged along too. Cheeto came aboard at the last minute saved us as we struggled to find a “cover.” Mari and Andrea split the task of wading through the Swamp’s murky archives to come up with the tracks that make up the bulk of this behemoth. A monster it is too, with 78 tracks clocking in at a staggering 7+ hours.

Why so big you ask. I blame the size on no one but myself. If I had put together a compilation quarterly as I had originally intended, this never would have happened. There was a lot of discussion on how to handle something of this size. Do we split it up and put out a volume a month for the next 6 months? How would we go about the daunting task of choosing who is on what volume? How could we make it fair? In the end, we decided to give you everything at once. We split into parts. The first part is bands that sent us tracks specifically for the compilation or bands we personally invited to be a part of the compilation. The subsequent parts are comprised of the tracks Mari and Andrea dredged from the Swamp.

Resident academia Mari studiously compiled a tracklist with band information and contacts. She and Andrea deserve the credit for getting this project completed. They put in many of their own hours, asking nothing in return. I tip my hat and congratulate them on a job well done. They have my utmost respect. I commend them for their efforts.

Lastly, I would like to thank Cheeto for providing the artwork for the cover. We got a sketch a few days ago which we would have been more than happy to use as it was. Being the man, er, cat, that he is, he finished it. It is more than any of us could have hoped for. His talents continue to amaze and impress. There is more to this Cat than you could imagine. Trust me.

That is it from me. I will now turn this over to Mari. Though this may have been my idea, it is undoubtedly Mari’s baby. Her DNA is all over it! 😉

Enjoy – Zodes

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Mari here:

Well, you know, guys, we have no secretaries here at the Swamp and we happily steal our time for this passion to everyday life. The Swamp is a great thing to “bathe” in but sometimes some big life events require a big amount of time.
Zodiac Lung, or Zodes, as of late smartly baptized by Psymin, has been and is facing great and fortunately joyful life events which became demanding.
So I’m glad
(a) that he wasn’t crossed with me for my pushes for the Swamp Comp Vol II (he is a good guy, we all know that!), and
(b) that in this overly busy period he accepted help from us for delivering the biiig baby!

The Swamp Comp has been one of the smartest ideas and deeds done here. And it all came from Zodes’ vivid mind. This great idea has been rewarded by an incredible spread of the first official edition of the Swamp Comp.
The core of the idea is represented by the bands populating the incredibly lively underground music panorama across the oceans.
At the Swamp we like to be like “explorers” of this underground universe and we are honoured to host so many contributions from unsigned bands which are able to perform at high- to top-level in spite of lacking the shield of big labels and managers.

As announced by Zodes, the Swamp Comp Vol. II is split in two parts involving 78 bands, and consequently, 78 tracks. Basically a monster …
You’ll find infos and myspace pages of all the bands on the text files in the folders.
A few words on these two parts…

The second, oversized part of the Comp is called “Those Who have Their Feet Poaching In The Swamp”. This is meant to refresh your memory or make you (re-)discover bands which have colonized the Swamp with their self-produced demos etc. during the last 8-9 months. For your ease we portioned the tracks into three downloadable blocks.

The first part of the Comp is called “Those Who Replied To The Howls Of The Wolf”. It is smaller but it is particularly significant to us because it gathers active contributions by bands.
The bands who replied to the call howled from both sides of the ocean and across continents, i.e.,
– Australia (Last Trip),
– USA (Wastelands Of Deceit, The Misanthrope Project),
– UK (Trippy Wicked & the Cosmic Children of the Knight),
– Austria (Home),
– Finland (Temples),
– Slovenia (Carnaval)
– and, massively, from my country, Italy (The Red Coil, Mahatma, Lunar Dust, Black Capricorn, Emme4, Noscrape, Humanity 1.0, Loimann and, last but not least, Il Malpertugio).

Please note that some of these bands are completely new to the Swamp.
Some of them include good friends (e.g., Zillagord singing in TüBüKü!) and some of them even sent in exclusive tracks from unreleased material which has been just or will hopefully be released (Loimann, Il Malpertugio, Black Capricorn and Wasteland Of Deceit).
You will find some infos about the bands in the folder.
I must say, I’m very proud that many bands from Italy “dared” send contributions. But we expect bands from all over for the next editions.

In any case, the whole collection is full of truly “great stuff” by these unsigned bands.
Here’s the complete track list (track – band’s name):

The Active Contributors – “Those Who Replied To The Howls Of The Wolf”

01 Burning Shores – The Red Coil
02 The Awakening – Wasteland of Deceit
03 Tetrodotoxin – Loimann
04 And Never Fall Down – Lunar Dust
05 Director – Carnaval
06 Ghost Of The Desert – Humanity 1.0
07 Deranged – Il Malpertugio
08 Matt Demon – Home
09 Perpetual Eclipse – Black Capricorn
10 Temples – Temples
11 Take It Or Leave It – Emme4
12 The Room Of Smoke – Noscrape
13 Ask Old Irish – Last Trip
14 The Three Philosophers – Mahatma
15 Gripping (Like A Mother) – TüBüKü
16 Because Of You – Trippy Wicked & the Cosmic Children of the Knight
17 Cigarette Burn – The Misanthrope Project

The Swampies or “Those Who have Their Feet Poaching In The Swamp”

01 Walk – Lazy Lizard
02 Juan Rolando’s Cadaver – Giganto
03 Book of Tyrants – Junior Bruce
04 Tidal – Alaskan
05 Open Cut – Manual Zombie
06 Mansonian – Pike
07 Vasta – Wiht
08 The Night Sky And The Wild Hunt – Seidr
09 The Cleric – Of Legend
10 Try – Downtrodden
11 All Eyes Glowing – Melodram
12 Black Hole – Baygon Vert
13 Crosstownbar of Blues – Bluesscreen
14 Dopesmoke – Black Acid Devil
15 Flawed Pure World – Flatware
16 Gravity – The Fallopian Dudes
17 Promethean – Maleveller
18 Red – Magnified Glass
19 River Of Sand – Pale Rider
20 Visitation – Purple Rhinestone Eagle
21 War – Bone To Rust
22 Control – Silver Devil
23 I Spread – Resonaut
24 Condescension – Sabre
25 Little Dragon – Hugenelk
26 Preachers Without Faith – Starve
27 Getting High At The Gates Of Hell – Drone Throne
28 Mog’s Brain Tumor Diagnosis – Yurt
29 Warhammer – 91s
30 Periapsis – Gemini One
31 Mulla Ang – Hukkunud Hinged
32 Iron Slugs – Sea Urchin
33 Dread Glimpses Of Truth – Mookerdam
34 Downtown Longbeach – Far Away Town
35 Super Porno Combo – Berserkowitz
36 Mouthbreather – Last Van Zant
37 IV – Wizard Smoke
38 The Gay Agenda – Megachurch
39 Ain’t No Blossom Here – She Loves Pablo
40 No Funeral – Deathbeds
41 Oktoplasty – öfö AM
42 Soresophagus – Druids
43 I Am Fear – Realistic Train
44 Hesper Payne – Hesper Payne
45 Hell’s On Wheels – Children Of Doom
46 Mouth Of Fire – Royal Thunder
47 Vesuvius – Shroud Eater
48 Tornado – Luna Negra
49 Sons Of Bitches – Four days To Burn
50 Demon Drink – Iron Void
51 Numb – Subatomic
52 Fog – Field Of Locust
53 Knives – The Black Knights
54 Shattered – Hollow Leg
55 Flies – The Xiphoid Process
56 Blood Of The Dead – Hands Of Orlac
57 Noctambula – El Gran Temor
58 All’s Quiet At Home – The Shrine
59 Legalize Murder – Dopethrone
60 Eight Ways To Bleed A Saint – Moses
61 And The Devil Followed … – Dröne

These tracks testify top performances only based on personal efforts and great passion: this is a great professional attitude to start with.
Hopefully with the diffusion of collections like the Swamp Comp we will be able to give something back to these bands and “spread the news” as much as possible.

I’m posting this “beast”, adorned with the original, super cool artwork by the Mighty Cheeto, on behalf of Zodes but together with Zodes and the rest of the Swamp team I express a big gratitude to the “actors”, the bands.
And a great thank you goes in particular to the bands who sent in their tunes.

So, folks, feel the passion and, please, do spread it around and support the bands as much as you can …

Those Who Replied To The Howl Of The Wolf

The Swampies – part 1 (tracks 1-23)

The Swampies – part 2 (tracks 24-43)

The Swampies – part 3 (tracks 44-61)

Doomed To Be Stoned In A Sludge Swamp

REVIEW

In its 3 years of existence, The Sludge Swamp has been one of the leading supporters of the underground Doom, Sludge, Stoner Rock scenes and they have also help a lot of Black, Death bands along the way. While the Sludge Swamp is known as a “download” site, what is missed by some is the work they have done in promoting new bands by posting links to demo downloads, show information and in some cases just a heads up on a great new band. This monster of a compilation highlights the hard work that goes on maintaining this great site. Being such a huge download, i would be reviewing for the next six months to go through every band on this great sampler (after all there is 78 bands & 78 songs) but here is some highlights. The first part of this compilation you get killer tracks from The Red Coil, Loimann, Temples and Trippy Wicked & The Cosmic Children Of The Knight along with the rest of the bands, none of which supply anything you could filler, its all killer! Tracks by Loimann and Black Capricorn made there debut appearances on the Sludge Swamp site and you get to hear them again here in all their glory.

The first part of the The Swampies or “Those Who have Their Feet Poaching In The Swamp” section of the compilation is also loaded with magical, kick ass moments like “Mansonian” by Pike, “Try” by Downtrodden, “Dopesmoke” by the excellent Black Acid Devil, “Control” by Stoner Riff Gods, Silver Devil, “Condescension” by Sludge Metal master’s Sabre. Need more reasons to download this beast, well lets talk Doom Metal then, bands like Iron Void, Deathbeds, Dopethrone and Wizard Smoke are also on here for your enjoyment. The range of sounds, styles and different vibes and grooves highlight how good and varied the heavy music scene is right now so this is a perfect soundtrack for your next all day/night party session. I was amazed when i first sat down to listen to this because i didn’t once get the urge to hit the skip button and yes it did take me a couple of drunken sessions to absorb all this but there wasn’t a wasted minute to be heard. The focus the Sludge Swamp has had on unsigned bands is to be celebrated and i think its a little sad that some people see the site as merely a way to get a freebie. Its much more than that as this awesome compilation shows, its a goldmine of discovery. Spend a hour on the site and you will find a band to support, and as it also states on the site its all about the underground and the underground needs sites like this despite whatever you personal opinion on downloading might be.

This is a essential download and one that is guaranteed to supply you with many favorite bands of the future. Download this and set aside a entire day to adsorb the hours of killer music this compilation contains. Easily its one of the most important compilations ever put together and one you must have in your collection. Enjoy!! 10/10