Filter
Forest Swords
Browse the latest digital releases by Forest Swords
Review: Liverpool's Matthew Barnes returns to London's Ninja Tune outfit with a one-off single from his new LP, Compassion. "Exalter" perfectly captures the mood and vibe of the album, a rhythmic assortment of ethnic harmonies that have been collated under a more rigid electronic framework. With fleeting, miasmic vocals, and a loose range of hollow electornic sounds, Forest Swords gives the term downtempo and whole new meaning. Deep and majestic, tenebrous and uplifting. All at once.
Review: Liverpudlian Matthew Barnes follows up his 2013 long player Engravings with this evocative album that encapsulates worlds both organic and synthetic. "Like many, with all that's been going on since I started making the record, I've struggled to see any kind of light at the end of the tunnel," says Barnes, "so I realised there's some sort of power in trying to create our own instead". Lead single "The Highest Flood" utilises classical instruments and chopped up choir samples in its brooding bittersweet arrangement over fiercely retrained beats. "Arms Out" is reminiscent of Dead Can Dance with its tabla drums and exotic instrumentation taking into deep esoteric territory while honorable mentions also to the industrial edged junkyard groove of "Exalter" and the dynamic closer "Knife Edge" which is the album at its most brooding.
Played by: Space Dimension Controller
