Swarm
BEYOND THE END

January 2004
Released: 2003, Mausoleum Records
Rating: 3.0/5
Reviewer: Luxi Lahtinen

After Death Angel split up in 1990 due to the band´s drummer Andy Galleon´s was injured critically in a tragical tour bus accident somewhere in the Arizona desert. It took more than a year from him to fully recover from the injuries he got. During this downtime, the band´s vocalist Mark Osegueda´s moved to New York ´to pursue a life outside of music´. All the three remaining guys formed a new band, The Organization (or simply known as “O” all over the world, too); did two albums and toured successfully both in the States and Europe ´til disbanded in 1995. Then the guys were involved with quite a few several ´project´ type of bands off which Swarm was the most long-lasting thing, having Rob, Andy and Mark from Death Angel in the line-up plus a non-Death Angel dude Michael Isaiah on bass. They toured f.ex. with Jerry Cantrell (that Alice in Chains –fame!) for three whole months in the States as a supporting band for him. Many other highly energetic yet very successful shows were played with other known names, too, but let´s just put it this way: “The rest is history…”.



BEYOND THE END contains material from the band´s two different periods; the earliest songs have been recorded during March 1999 and the latest sessions for this particular album were caught in a tape as late as in June 2001.



Then as for the music itself inside BEYOND THE END, first off I have to admit I was more than just ´a bit´ skeptical when I was offered to review three ex- Death Angel –dudes´ new ambitious creation called Swarm. Secondly, I need to point out that Swarm hasn´t musically anything to do with the word ´metal´ in its truest meaning. Some of the bands that the guys themselves claim their inspirations for Swarm are such bands as AC/DC, Lez Zeppelin, Van Halen, Queen, etc. - and non-metal ´loves´ from Bob Marley to Stevie Wonder to The Doors to GBH to Nick Cave to heaps of other artists.



Their music could be described shortly with such words as honest, uncompromising, groovy, alternative Rock that has been mixed with some heaviness from the 70s Heavy Rock. A song like “Karma” off the album works out a great proof about the fact the guy´s still burning passion for things a bit heavier in music in general. I have to say that BEYOND THE END is a solid and groovy alternative Rock album that has its cool moments when you want to listen to some more mellow music for a change. I really enjoyed the album a little bit as wholeness; it was a decent Rock album to jam with really. A real recommended stuff for some grill parties, for example. Or, maybe some of you could just claim that the ol´ metalhead here is just getting a bit too old, whatever - HA!



I don´t feel like analyzing their music any down deeper and give you all the badly grounded and explained reasons why you just should check them out badly. I think I pretty much covered everything I already had to say about the album above, so the rest is really up to you what to do next…