Swamp Coffin: Welcome To Rot

Of the branching family tree of metal sub-genres and offshoots, sludge is among those that lives up to its name the best. Angular, ugly, filthy, wilfully inaccessible to the uninitiated. On the surface it is unfiltered, nihilistic rage. But beneath that, it deals with some incredibly heavy emotional load bearing, and yields a powerful catharsis for those who immerse themselves in its pitch black, brackish waters. For Jon Rhodes, guitarist/vocalist for Rotherham rotters SWAMP COFFIN, this catharsis is vital.

Themes including grief, trauma, depression, and betrayal are explored in the trio’s NOLA worshipping sludge, and are heavily present on their debut full-length, Noose Almighty, as he explains. “Those feelings have been hanging over my head for coming up to four years now, and with Noose Almighty I think I’ve finally managed to exorcise some of those demons. It’s funny because day-to-day I’m not the sort to talk about my problems, but give me a guitar and a pen and paper to write lyrics and I’ll bear my soul. It’s cheaper than therapy, too.”

This feeling of unburdening and catharsis extends to the band’s ripping live performances too. “Standing on a stage, screaming about all the shit me, my family, those closest to me have gone through is the most freeing thing in the world,” Jon says. “It’s always an enjoyable experience for me, it’s never difficult to revisit those feelings live. I’ll look at my wife from the stage and we’ll have a bit of a knowing smile to each other. We’ve had each other’s backs through everything and these songs are a catalogue of that, something to look back on and think ‘we got through that together’. We like to end our shows with Last Of The Summer Slime from our Flatcap Bastard Features EP. Up until that point in the set I can always keep it together, but the ending to that song is my opportunity to truly purge. For those last few minutes, I just get inside my own head and give it everything.”

While dealing with hefty subject matter through the means of scalding riffs and roiling sludge might sound like a dour mix, Jon’s tongue is firmly in cheek, and the band aren’t the kind to take themselves (or their craft) too seriously. “Being super serious doesn’t really work for us. It’s easy to slip into that ‘arms folded, frowny face’ metal band cliché, but that’s not how we are as people,” Jon says. “We’re happy to have a joke and poke fun at ourselves at the expense of losing a bit of mystique. Same with the song titles, we like a pun, we want to make you smile, but at the same time we want you to know that when you press play, it’s all business.”

This attitude towards levity, away from po-faced seriousness, extends to the title of the band’s debut: a puntastic effort that, as Jon tells it, descended in a fit of holiday genius. “We were on holiday in America in 2019, as a bit of a treat after everything we’d been through the previous couple of years, and it was literally a case of watching TV whilst we were waiting to go to Disney one morning. Bruce Almighty was on and my brain just went ‘Noose Almighty [laughs]!’ We were literally walking through Disney as the song was forming in my head, having a picture with my son and a seven foot tall Donald Duck as it was piecing itself together in my brain.”

This lightness and levity, however, is tempered with an awareness that the title deals with a subject tragically too common across the heavy music space (and society in general); mental health and suicide. “It feels like it’s almost a weekly occurrence that I hear about a friend, a colleague, guys in bands that are losing their battle with their mental health,” Jon says. “As a band, we’ve all had our share of issues with our mental health, and it genuinely breaks my heart to know that, even with the reduced stigma of talking about it, suicide feels like some people’s only option. It genuinely breaks my heart, and I just really needed to say something with that song.”

Fans of the band’s previous work, 2018 demo Hey Ho, Stolen Logo and 2019 EP (and contender for best/most ridiculous metal record title ever) Flatcap Bastard Features will be right at home with Noose Almighty, as Jon confirms the record is a continuation down the sonic road that SWAMP COFFIN have been treading. “Thematically, it picks up exactly where the last record left off – we even sampled the outro from Last Of The Summer Slime, reversed it, and put it at the beginning of the new album. We’re acknowledging the previous record, but also moving forward. I’d definitely say it’s an evolution; our song-writing has levelled up this time, it’s much more focused, which makes everything sound even nastier. And it sounds fucking enormous.”

As influences go, the band’s sound is a melting pot, and has led to some interesting and unexpected moments on the new album, including its title track. These deviations were intentional, as Jon explains. “As well as the obvious 90s NOLA influences, Martyn [White, bass] are really into CONVERGE. The fact they can go from huge walls of chaotic noise, to doomy stuff, to acoustic songs whilst still sounding like themselves really gave me the confidence to go ‘fuck it, let’s write a song where I scream over a clean guitar for nearly two minutes’. I think it gives those lyrics extra prominence too. CONJURER were another big influence; they really are one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen, just absolutely ferocious and I definitely wanted to tap into some of their energy.”

Noose Almighty is set to be released on APF Records, fast becoming a powerhouse label of the grimmest of UK metal releases. How the band came to work with the label, however, was anything but grim; it’s something of a love story. “We basically flirted for a year via social media,” Jon explains. “We’d put clips of parts of songs or big riffs on our Facebook with the sole purpose of [label boss Andrew Field] seeing them. It says on their website that they won’t sign a band until he’s heard the record they’ll be releasing, but with us he eventually just messaged me and said ‘fuck it, let’s do business’. We were the first band he’d ever signed without hearing any new music, let alone the finished product.”

While other bands had whole tours cancelled or fell apart due to the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic, SWAMP COFFIN were (reasonably) lucky to have emerged relatively unscathed from the last year. “Gig wise, we’d deliberately left the calendar empty after March to focus on writing and recording so we were fortunate to only have to cancel one show,” Jon explains. The trio have their sights set firmly on 2021, and hitting the road in support of Noose Almighty. “We’ve got a few shows lined up and we’re hoping to hit some new places in 2022. We’d love to get on some festivals; Damnation, Bloodstock, Download. We’ve loved playing these new songs live so far so we can’t wait to get out there and batter some new audiences.”

What’s clear from speaking with Jon is his view that metal plays an important part in his ongoing journey with mental health, and acts as a vital outlet, catharsis, a – sometimes literal – lifeline for others. “Metal has always been the perfect outlet for expressing anger towards the shittier parts of existence, and with everything going on in the world right now there’s a lot to inspire bands like us to write about, and for fans to connect to,” Jon says. “As you get older there’s even more shit to deal with, so having something to not only write and play, but other bands of a similar mindset to enjoy and vent through is really important. It’s really weird that even though we’re talking about a lot of negative feelings and topics, there’s always a really positive energy and a sense of community at our live shows. Like, we’re all bonding by dealing with all the bullshit together.”

Noose Almighty is out now via APF Records.

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