Now signed to iconic, and forever-excellent NY label Matador, during that long, long time they've galloped ahead sonically, leaving the abstract reverb-etched sketches of the 33 EP in a groggy swamp inundated with Foals excrement, refining and redefining as they lumber towards ubiquity. Previous recordings emerge intermittently, reincarnated as glistening behemoths lurching from an omnipresent and eerie feedback, from the intricately arabesque Warpath, seared at the midpoint by skyscraper shards of sneering guitar, to the Armageddon-esque roars of Marching Song and the ethereal despondency of the tribalistic chants and howls of Eumenides. Marine Fields Glow stitches together bedraggled coos reminiscent of Evanescence's Amy Lee with an underlying ebb of xx disheartenment, a mutilated hybrid that hobbles endearingly, anything but insipidly, whilst Light Streams twinkles in a resplendently downcast mire of sorrow, before a mauled take on Florence's Drumming Song emerges at the end of the tunnel, like the humid void that follows raging tempest. Chorea is as sterile as the eye of the dentist's gum-piercing needle, as six string reverb stings eardrums, incurring muscle revulsions amidst Hadean shrieks snatched from Rembrandt oil, whilst the bedeviled interlude Battlecry/Mimicry comes across as Krautrock scrapping with Tomorrow, In A Year. Hexagons IV meanwhile, our humble highlight of a record that's sure to thunder when forecast, embodies an unfathomable progression of a band that were never anything short of spectacular. As the incandescent embers of Swans fade to black, you're left feeling as though your heart's been charred to coal, and you're ready for repeat.
