Swarm Intelligence - Faction

It is high time that Berlin-based producer and DJ Simon Hayes began receiving the accolades he deserves for his contribution to modern industrial music with his rhythmic noise brainchild, Swarm Intelligence. Simon's latest and undoubtedly the most obliterating offering takes the form of Faction, which is Swarm Intelligence's first album on independent Berlin label Ad Noiseam.

Bringing to the table gravid, decimating rhythms that can smash through brick walls, along with subsidence-inducing bass and an intimidating mechanical presence, Faction is a force to be reckoned with. The record establishes its crushing authority with its opener, False Flag, whose blunt attack conjures up images of a squad of killer robots marching in unison on their way to their next target. One of the best album openers I had ever encountered, this track is the most representative of Faction's earthquake-like qualities.

As if obeying False Flag's violent command, the remainder of the album bangs on like a giant out-of-control steamroller. The bruising and brilliant Antenna packs enough rhythmic noise power to fire off an electro-magnetic pulse capable of neutralising entire armies of cyborg combatants. Motionless Sky attacks the ears with clangorous bass and backbeats that are akin to M-80 explosions, while Outpost should really be given the all-clear to be used in sonic warfare. Faction's palpable atmosphere of a post-apocalyptic robot battlefield is informed by surges of coruscating static and caustic breaks, its sustained bone-shattering assault culminating with the seismic standout track, Destroyer.

Engineered to annihilate, Faction is one of the most notable and groundbreaking rhythmic noise works produced in the last few years, and a glowing testament to the subgenre's evolution in a more destructive direction. Nov 08 2014