Staff Reviews

Forest Swords - Dagger Paths

Review by Rory Gibb

Tantalisingly short but precociously fully formed, operating both within and totally apart from current trends, it’s like nothing else out there.»

User reviews

• 8/10 by gloomy666

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limited version with bonus cd that includes the 'fjree feather' ep, a mixtape including becoming real and wild beasts reworks by forest swords and various forest swords remixes by becoming real, legionnaires and others. the wirral's enigmatic forest swords make a textured, gauzy music as indebted to the liverpool region's rich musical heritage as it is the windswept-yet-beautiful coastal environment from which it was born. the result is something completely organic, sounding like a mix of mogwai's more luscious soundscapes, burial's sample strewn claustrophobia, with touches of enniomorricone's legendary reverbed guitar soundtracks. debut release 'dagger paths' is eight tracks of slow release satori and soulful ambiance marred with chasmic guitars and dread soaked percussion. 'hoylake misst' - named after the one of the peninsula's river-facing towns - is a thick, chanting clifftop epic and a ghostly cover of aaliyah's 'if your girl only knew' threatens to get funky. closer 'the light' is the record's most radiant moment - hazy, offbeat and littered with errant strings. it's clear forest swords' influences are as wide and varied as the landscape his music is created in. the record's clattering dub, thunderous grooves and cavernous guitar licks rub shoulders with r'n'b shuffles, primitive drumming and heady drones to create music that sounds as weighty and chilling as it is triumphant and thrilling. 'dagger paths' includes remastered versions of the acclaimed out-of-print cassette singles 'miarches' and 'glory gongs', tracks from march's us lp release on olde english spelling bee and both sides of no pain in pop's 'rattling cage' 7" single in august.
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