Swansdown is a band that consists of four members who have a wide musical interest. They try to blend their personal musical taste into Swansdown and the result is some sort of elektro-doom. Slow brooding doom in the vein of My Dying Bride is being fused with German elektro from the eighties.
As ambivalent as the music is, so is my response to “Solitude”.

The demo/mini-cd begins with an intro which arouses immediate interest: a beat made up of machine sounds and a distorted voice, prophesying doom and destruction. The first real track “Parasite Machines” builds up my expectations even further but when singer Casper Vellekoop begins to sing it is at first a disappointment. His voice is a bit whiny and the Dutch accent is very present. The music still keeps it interesting still.

The third track “A Swan`s Feather Falling” shows a different, better side of Casper as he now signs a bit in the vein of Aaron from My Dying Bride.

This track is overall more doom metal than the previous one and, conservative metalhead as I am; I like this one better than the more danceable tracks. Although the grunt (by guitarist Jobbe) is not the most convincing, I’ve ever heard it still is sufficient to deliver the desired aggression to this track.

The rest of “Solitude” follows the same pattern, elektro/gothic tracks like “Leda” and “Aka” are varied with slow doom metal songs with a twist (“Running Out” and “Weeping Willow”). Although I generally don’t like danceable and gothic music something on “Solitude” is able to keep my attention. Maybe it’s the overall depressive atmosphere and feeling of hopelessness.
An interesting demo by any means.