Swarm: Limited Red Vinyl LP

Upon Swarms 2016 release, Brooklyn-based Bambara had been honing their noise-rock brutalism since forming in Athens, Georgia in 2009. On Swarm, their second full-length, the band began to pull their approach into sharp focus, and the result was a foundational triumph.

After the pure noise experimentation of their 2013 debut Dream-violence, here the band began to develop many of their later trademarks. Marrying the maniacal ravings of The Birthday Party and the brutality of early Swans with the tangled roots-punk of The Gun Club, the spotlight started to fall on vocalist/ guitarist Reid Batehs lyrics as well as the Spaghetti western atmospherics that would come to the fore to such effect on later releases such as Shadow On Everything and Stray.

For fans of Bambaras visceral and pummeling performances, which led to extensive touring opportunities along rising star contemporaries such as Gilla Band, Algiers, and IDLES before earning the band their own headlining slot on multiple international tours, Swarm will serve as a sort of missing link. Now, for the first time ever, live-set favorites such as the brooding An Ill Son, the flawlessly dynamic Black, and the pop-snarled All the Ugly Things can be listened to at a level of audio fidelity on par with the bands later recordings.

Tiny Mix Tapes praised Dreamviolence, the bands first LP, by saying that complete, utter anguish has never sounded this good. Swarm made it sound even better. With these 12 songs, Bambara proved that sometimes the only way to confront a fucked-up world is to sink to its level. As Henry Rollins succinctly summed it up at the time, this is a REALLY cool record.

1. Clearing Out the Weeds
2. Her Sister Touya
3. An Ill Son
4. Black
5. Like Waves
6. I Dont Mind
7. Filled Up With Night
8. Its Nothing
9. All the Ugly Things
10. I Cant Recall
11. In Bars
12. As Her