With a logo that is difficult to read and a sound described by the band as being built on the foundations of death, thrash and black metal, as you would expect, Australia’s Sword Toward Self’s debut EP Dissolution Mantras is heavy.  

They jump straight into things on opening track “Sword Toward Self”, which is eight minutes of predominately death orientated metal.  It does also cover a lot of other ground, almost sounding like they tried to ram every single influence into one song.  They vary their death and black metal vocals in with some clean singing, accompanied by acoustic guitars, part way through the song, before blasting back in viciously with the death growls and heavy guitars.  The guitars work well and vary as much as the vocals, being mostly the stereotypical death type riffs, but also adding in a cleaner sound, almost along the lines of Amorphis’ take on folk/death metal. 

Second song “Regress/Regret” is much more straight forward and less diverse. It is fast paced and has a much more old school sound to it, and although it's by no means a bad song it feels less inspired than the other two on this EP. They bring things to a close with “Iridescent Wings Of The Ungods”. While again this is mainly a fast, death metal style song Sword Towards Self also demonstrate they are happy slowing things down, and do so without losing any of their heaviness, giving a bit of a death/gothic feel to it. 

Dissolution Mantras needs several listens to be fully appreciated and while it is not without it’s faults, it is enough to make me interested in seeing what they accomplish when they complete their full length debut.

Contact: www.myspace.com/swordtowardself 

Track Listing

Sword Towards Self
Regress Reject
Iridescent Wings Of The Ungods

Line Up

Phil Brown - Guitars/Vocals
Dan Nahum - Drums
Henry Lauer - Bass