Destructo Swarmbots

Not as obviously extreme as Sunn O))), Nadja or any of the suddenly legion drone metal acts on the scene, the Swarmbots are still more impolite than most acts on the "brainy” side of the buzzing divide. Mike Mare, who also is part of NJ hip-hop crew Dalëk’s touring band, seems to be more in line with ’90s post-industrial ambient/isolationist acts such as Justin Broadrick’s Final or Mark Spybey’s Dead Voices on Air. Clear Light kicks off with a 40-minute monolith called "Banta” that supposes the sound of a guitar loop plummeting through space on the Voyager probe. A sense of movement through resonant, yet mostly empty, distance definitely rules the atmosphere, as the pieces slowly transform from grey to slate to charcoal. The three shorter pieces are like shards that have split away from the larger opener — a fragment of feedback here, polished echo and sustain there. The very between-ness of Mare’s sound may draw in listeners from both the dark and lighter sides of the drone force, though the opposite is equally possible.