Album Review: Swept to Sea – Lost Shores (Self Released)

San Francisco Bay area melodic metalcore band Swept to Sea are back with a brand-new album called ‘Lost Shores’.

It’s an impressive start to the album as Swept to Sea unleash a cacophony of mighty metalcore sounds with opener, Exit Interview. A start that encourages some serious head-banging via alternating stompy heaviness and spicy melody, hitting an anthemic high with the chorus. If you like your metalcore to have a bit of bite, this track delivers.

Likewise, if you like your melodic metalcore to have a more melodeath vibe, than the following Salvation and False Affections will deliver too. Both are vigorous and hefty head-bangers that set the senses alight with big and robust sounding melodies. The latter also happens to have a blazing guitar solo too.

With added drama, Testament of Hate arrives in ass-kicking style, transforming into an intensity-charged listen. Then there is Loss, a delightful example of Swept to Sea’s innate ability to be instrumentally harmonious. Where the melodies take hold and simply don’t let go for its short, but memorable run time. Before the halfway point of the album goes by with effective force via the beastly brilliance of The Echoes of Goodbye. Melody and metal combining to create one hell of a spectacle.

It’s a high point of the record, but there’s still plenty more to come and with that comes a bit more savagery via the horror-laden and heavy sound of Shattered Glass. Here, Swept to Sea infuse elements of black metal into their crunchy death sound, while ensuring melody still sits comfortably in the background. It, and the following Nowhere to Run can be summed up as a full-frontal assault of brutality.

Do you still have energy left? Are the muscles in your neck ready for a few more rounds of head banging? Is your mind ready for an even stronger showcase of crashing and crushing modern melodic death and core intensity? The answer should be an emphatic YES, of course, especially as Swept to Sea have done so much to win listeners over so far.

Happily, the latter part of the album doesn’t disappoint and tracks like Trapped in Memories, Who We Are, and Verterunt Ad Mare confirm this as a ‘must listen’ record for all fans of heaviness. It’s not going to change the world, but we’re all better off for it existing.

Swept to Sea – Lost Shores Track Listing:

1. Exit Interview
2. Salvation
3. False Affections
4. Testament of Hate
5. Loss
6. The Echoes of Goodbye
7. Shattered Glass
8. Nowhere to Run
9. Trapped in Memories
10. Who We Are
11. Verterunt Ad Mare

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