Review & Full Album Stream: The Swell Fellas, Residuum Unknown
Tomorrow, July 19, marks the release of the third and reportedly final long-player from Nashville atmospheric heavy rockers The Swell Fellas, Residuum Unknown, and if you don’t think that otherwise very good news is delivered with a shot of bummerness as a result of their breakup, you probably will after listening.
A farewell release isn’t something every band gets to make. Most of the time, a band’s ‘final album’ isn’t billed that way when it’s coming out; it’s something that happens after the fact. The sense of culmination pervading Residuum Unknown is palpable through the seven-songer’s 45-minute stretch, which is marked by largesse beyond even what was harnessed on 2022’s Novaturia (review here); an expansive, heavy breadth that’s atmospheric in its churn the way gases on Jupiter seem to swirl and spin around each other, creating and unfurling massive, intense storms.
So too it goes with cuts like “Chore to Breathe” and “The Drain,” which follow album-intro “Unknown” and introduce the elements at play: airy, melodic vocals in a post-rock vein, almost Radioheaded at times, a density of low end from departing bassist Mark Rohrer that becomes a signature across the span, and intermittent bursts of intensity that offer no less crush for their refinement. As the last The Swell Fellas LP, Residuum Unknown is likewise urgent and methodical, and its songs create a sense of mood that draws the work together as a single, front-to-back experience.
Explorations of guitar in effects and riffs from Conner Poole and complementary tom runs from drummer Chris Poole fill out the spaces and sharpen in tone alongside Rohrer‘s bass as “The Drain” gets underway, a fuzz riff cutting through the aural mist and reverb-drenched voice, crashing, volatile, but not without purpose and not haphazard. As the record plays out, the human presence waxes and wanes but never departs, and though “The Drain” starts furious, its midsection break offers a comedown against which to set all the bombast. They build it back up, of course, with a buzzsaw guitar solo topping and smoothing the transition, but the impact and teased come-apart are a preface for what side B will bring in the closing duo of “Give Roses” and “Next Dawn,” both of which top eight minutes and, in succession, give Residuum Unknown its most brazenly chaotic moments.
The longest song on the record, however, is sorta-centerpiece “Pawns Parade” (8:59), which emphasizes the immersion that’s been happening all the while and moves with deceptive smoothness through multi-layer early verses en route to a takeoff after three and a half minutes; a duly resonant surge, still deep in mix and vibrant in heft. Angular guitar lines run in cycles with the drums — one suspects the Poole brothers could do that kind of thing all day — but the forward motion isn’t lost as the next verse begins and carries toward the utter consumption that marks the second half of the song, in the aftermath of which they offer a quiet epilogue of far-off, fading vocals.
If that’s where a vinyl side would split, fair enough. It feels all the more like a clear division with the acoustic guitar at the outset of “Gateway Grand” ahead of the aforementioned concluding pair “Give Roses” and “Next Dawn,” and the folkish strum comes with progressive-style drone and percussive thud, the melody layered and working toward its full realization over the course of its four and a half minutes, never quite departing the guitar-and-voice foundation that was likely how it was originally written, but expounded upon in ways that give a sense of how crucial ambience is to what The Swell Fellas are doing here.
Ringing bells — either manipulated or synthesized, I don’t know — give over to the bassy start of “Give Roses,” and a float of guitar tops the procession with surprisingly gentle twists, intricate in their tone and detail as they wrap around the verse lines, obscure but evocative. They’re shortly past the midpoint when at 4:30 the song stops short and unleashes another stage of willful cacophony, becoming a genuine onslaught for the remainder that’s not barbaric or lacking in thought behind it, but is a level of furiousness not shown before. By the time they push, roll and flatten their way through the rest of “Give Roses,” it’s difficult to imagine both the acoustic “Gateway Grand” that took place only a few minutes earlier and their being able to effectively follow “Give Roses” with anything else, but the fact is that “Next Dawn” picks up from the deconstruction at the end of the song prior and maintains that stupefying force for most of its own stretch.
The Swell Fellas are too dynamic in their craft to do one thing for eight and a half minutes, but “Next Dawn” is underscored with a doom that ripples no matter how loud a given part might be early on, and so is able to bring together the atmospheric ideals and noisy pulse that have pervaded throughout Residuum Unknown; a whole-song crescendo serving both its own needs and that of the record in its entirety. And when they find themselves shortly before the seven-minute mark, the three-piece shift over to an angular riff that reminds of nothing so much as early Mastodon echoing off canyon walls, cutting and bleeding in nod and drawl as they make their way to the end, inevitable. The vocals are last to go in a relatively quick dissipation, and even the silence after the song is finished feels heavier for what The Swell Fellas undertook in that apex charge.
I will not claim to know the future or to say that the Pooles and Rohrer might not change their minds and decide to keep being a band or move forward in some other way. But if Residuum Unknown is in fact their last outing in whatever form, it portrays a band with still more to offer, more to say than has been said. It deserves more than to be a footnote in the career arc of a band who didn’t stick around long enough to even potentially get their due, to be sure. It is otherworldly in character and yet able to slam into your eardrum with terrestrial magnitude.
Residuum Unknown streams in its entirety below. I don’t take lightly the opportunity to stream what’s ostensibly the last thing The Swell Fellas will do, and I thank the band for the chance to host the record. As always, I hope you enjoy.
PR wire info follows:
The Swell Fellas, Residuum Unknown (2024)
Hailing from their hometown of Ocean City, Maryland, and now residing in Nashville, TN, The Swell Fellas took lessons from their early days of improvising extensive riff heavy jams, and formed a dark, refreshing sound that will have you riding a wave of intense meditation into soaring musical crescendos. In 2020, the band released The Big Grand Entrance in January, three song EP The Great Play of Extension in April, and single Death Race in August. After an intensive early 2022 tour schedule supporting All Them Witches, The Swell Fellas released their latest studio effort, Novaturia, on June 17th, 2022.
This power trio is made up of a pair of brothers, Conner and Chris Poole (guitar and drums respectively) with their longtime friend, Mark Rohrer, a guitarist who they begged to buy bass gear. Growing out of their backyard home studio in MD, the band is pushed forward by Rohrer’s brand of heavy ethereal sound baths on bass, wailing lead guitar with dynamic instrumental effects, and an underscore of wonderfully technical drumming. And with so, the trio have distilled their personal chemistry into something greater than the sum of its parts. With larger than life lyrics inspired by the ebbs and flows of their personal lives, the band remains surprisingly grounded for a group who are so prone to exploration.
Nashville heavy psych trio The Swell Fellas release their third and final album Residuum Unknown late July 2024. Encompassing everything the band has to offer on one incredibly written album will leave fans in awe.
The trio have toured with giants in the industry such as All Them Witches and King Buffalo and built up quite a following in the last 4-5 years. Long time friend and Bassist Mark Rohrer unfortunately had to part ways leaving brothers Chris and Connor Poole a tough decision to end the band. However, not without a proper send off by releasing their best album to date.
The Swell Fellas were:
Conner Poole // Guitar and Vocals
Chris Poole // Drums and Vocals
Mark Rohrer // Bass and Vocals
Shame they’re breaking up.
Never heard of these guys before, bummer to discover them just as they break up. But digging this album a lot, will have to delve into their other 2 albums now.