The latest release from post rockers Guild Theory is the dark and brooding song Indignant Swines, which serves as the second single from their upcoming album entitled The Mellified Man. As an avid fan of Guild Theory and a huge fan of their first album, I’ll try to keep this review as objective and unbiased as I can…although I doubt I’ll succeed at that.
There are only a handful of songs out there that have a totally new and fresh sounding main riff/hook that will immediately catch listeners’ attention, and this song is a prime example of that. The alternate picking on clean guitars mixed with the heavy bass lines calls for a 2000s Post-Grunge Feeling, but what sets this song apart is its relatively slower tempo. You’d think that for the sound to be rich and full the band needs to play in faster tempos and double their time signature, but our guys here are not in need of that as they just opted for keeping the song mid-tempo, the drums pounding heavily and slowly all while the vocals soar with a thick and rich tone above it.
Now another 2000s nuance here is usually vocal distortion or screaming, but remember how I said these guys have a taste of their own…the lead vocals and the backing vocals are both so clear and so chest-y that they touch you and give you goosebumps while you can still decipher the lyrics and feel every word and every emotion they’re getting across…it’s a simple yet extremely successful equation.
As we move from the more somber verses to the haunting chorus, the main riff/ progression changes into a slightly different variation and the vocals grow more gain and volume, which is both an amazing musical choice and a showcasing of stellar production and mixing work.
All in all, this song’s instrumentation and vocals have something for everyone. It may not be as post-rock as the band’s previous work, but this song definitely shows us how much these guys are in love with the 2000s Alternative era, and how they constantly reinstate and reinvent the elements that shaped said era…all while keeping their own unique personality and musical fingerprint.
