ALBUM REVIEW: Downswing – ‘And Everything Was Dark’

There’s a particular kind of darkness that Downswing thrives in, not the theatrical, overblown kind, but the sort that seeps through cracks in real life, heavy with regret, grief, and the echo of bad decisions. On their new album, And Everything Was Dark, the band leans fully into that space, crafting a record that feels both suffocating and strangely cathartic. The guitars still bite, the breakdowns still hit like blunt force trauma, but there’s a new emotional gravity here, a willingness to linger in the aftermath rather than just rage through it. It’s a record that rewards listeners who’ve grown up with the band’s sound, even as it challenges them with a murkier, more introspective vision of heaviness. And yet, for all its weight, there’s a flicker of light buried in the distortion, proof that Downswingstill knows how to turn pain into propulsion.

No God To Me sets the tone immediately, all teeth and tension, a declaration of disillusionment wrapped in blast-beat precision and jagged riffs. It’sDownswing at their most unflinching, rejecting salvation in favor of raw self-exposure. The song doesn’t beg for redemption; it spits it out. The vocals sound torn between fury and exhaustion, like someone clawing at the walls of their own faith, while the production feels denser than anything they’ve done before, suffocating, but deliberately so. There’s a moment near the midpoint where the chaos briefly fractures into almost silence, and that breath feels almost sacred, a fleeting reprieve before everything collapses again. As an opener, it’s brutal and uninviting in the best way possible: an initiation into the darkness the album promises.

If No God to Me was a rejection, Emptiness Remains is retaliation. There’s nothing passive about it, the song erupts like a counterstrike against betrayal, every riff sharpened to cut through the mix. The drums sound like they’re trying to crack concrete, while the vocals teeter between fury and desperation, the kind that comes when someone’s pushed too far. Downswing channel that anger with precision here; it’s not chaos for chaos’s sake, but a controlled burn aimed squarely at whoever tried to strip them of their sense of self. The breakdown doesn’t just land: it devastates, the kind of hit that leaves silence humming in its wake. Emptiness Remains proves Downswingstill know how to weaponise pain, turning resentment into something feral and cathartic.

Drowned Out feels like a breaking point: the sound of someone screaming to be heard over the noise and realizing no one’s listening. The guitars churn with an almost mechanical ferocity, but there’s real anguish underneath, the kind that turns anger into survival instinct.Downswing lock into a punishing rhythm here, every hit landing like it’s meant to shake something loose. The vocals are desperate, venomous, and human all at once, the delivery of someone who’s been talked over for too long and has decided to burn the room down instead. The production keeps everything close and suffocating, forcing the listener into the same headspace: tense, cornered, and thrashing for air. Drowned Out isn’t just heavy, but personal, the kind of track that makes you feel the weight in your chest long after it ends.

Midway through the record, For What It’s Worth feels like the eye of the storm, not calm, but calculated. Featuring Travis Moseley of Colorblind, the track bridges Downswing’sguttural core with something more layered, almost cinematic in scope. Moseley’sguest spot doesn’t just blend in; it cuts through, his voice a different shade of anguish that pushes the song into new emotional territory. The interplay between his delivery and Downswing’s unrelenting backbone creates a tension that feels volatile, like two forces trying to out-scream each other for the truth. It’s less about vengeance and more about recognition, admitting what’s been lost without softening the blow. By this point in And Everything Was Dark, the fury hasn’t faded, but it’s clearer, more focused, like the band’s finally learning to weaponize clarity instead of chaos.

At just forty-one seconds, Stand By… barely registers as a song, yet it’s one of And Everything Was Dark’s most vital moments. After the emotional grind of the first half, it arrives like a glitch in the system: calm, almost cleansing at first, then quietly unsettling. Ambient hums and static swirl like a signal trying to break through, a fragile calm that never quite trusts itself. There’s no resolution, just a slow tightening, a pulse that grows beneath the surface until it’s clear something bigger is coming. And when that tension finally breaks, it’s Serpent that delivers the strike, all venom and precision, the sound of the album snapping back to life with teeth bared. Together, the two tracks form a single heartbeat: hesitation and release, silence and violence intertwined.

Too Little Too Late crashes in like a confrontation that’s been brewing for years. Featuring Chris Roetter metalcore heavyweights Like Moths To Flames, the track feels like the point where every buried grudge and swallowed word finally erupts. The guest vocals don’t just complement Downswing’s ferocity, they amplify it, layering two distinct shades of rage that collide rather than blend. There’s a sharp emotional throughline here: not just anger, but exhaustion with the cycle of betrayal and regret that’s haunted the album up to this point. The guitars snarl, the drums hit with surgical cruelty, and beneath it all is a sense of finality, a recognition that some bridges don’t burn; they explode. Too Little Too Late stands as one of the album’s defining moments, where Downswing’s aggression meets clarity, and catharsis sounds like mutual destruction.

Eternal feels like the album’s final reckoning, the moment everything Downswing’sbeen dragging through the mud finally catches fire. Stretching to nearly five minutes, it’s the longest track on And Everything Was Dark, and that space gives it room to breathe, build, and burn. It opens in restraint, a rare twenty seconds of uneasy calm that feels almost fragile, like the breath before a scream. Then, without warning, it detonates into the band’s signature chaos: dense riffs, bone-splitting percussion, and vocals that sound less performed than purged. But beneath the violence, there’s something different, not hope, exactly, but resolve. It’s as ifDownswing have clawed their way through every layer of fury and grief just to emerge scarred but standing. Eternal doesn’t close And Everything Was Dark with relief; it closes it with acceptance that the darkness never really leaves, but maybe, finally, you learn to live inside it.

By the time And Everything Was Dark reaches its final, blistering notes, it’s more than just a showcase of heaviness, it’s a document of survival. Across its runtime, Downswing plunge headfirst into death, darkness, and the disintegration of faith, but what’s remarkable is how they claw their way back from it. The guest features, from Travis Moseley’s haunting intensity to Chris Roetter’s visceral rage, expand the record’s emotional range, adding fresh voices to the struggle without breaking its cohesion. For all its violence, the album never feels hollow; every breakdown, every guttural scream, is tethered to something real. Downswing haven’t just mastered their riffs, they’ve mastered their storytelling, shaping pain into narrative and chaos into catharsis. And Everything Was Dark doesn’t promise light at the end, but it does prove one thing: you can walk through the fire and still come out breathing, even if you’re covered in ash.

For fans of: Wage War, thrown, Fox Lake

‘And Everything Was Dark’ by Downswing is out now on MNRK Records.

Words by Ell Bradbury