It’s been a while since fans have heard from Swedish sludgers Signo Rojo, but it hasn’t been for a lack of trying on the band’s part. Four years on since they entered the studio, Svårfödd is finally about to see the light of day. Previous attempts to record the album have proved futile – technical difficulties, mental health issues, malfunctioning amps and tight schedules ensured the original session had to be almost entirely forsaken.
As the follow up to the band’s two previous EPs, the album was to essentially be a compilation of material that they’d had perfected over some live sets. Work began in December 2013, but the session proved almost entirely futile. The band would have to build their own in-house studio to prepare the release, with frontman Jonas, having moved city, recording the vocals in a completely separate studio. His tracks would be rendered useless by technical malfunctions, and soon after he would move back and re-record the vocals once again. The end result proved much more rewarding, and after almost half a decade of drug-induced procrastination, bad mixes and one particularly debilitating case of gonorrhoea, Svårfödd is finally set for release on 24th November.
A completely DIY album, funded solely by the band after two labels picked up the release and folded during the arduous recording process, Svårfödd is a dense album of hefty sludge, and as huge fans of the album, we’re thrilled to bring you an exclusive stream of the LP’s second track, ‘Dead Horse’.
When asked about the track, Jonas explained: “Svårfödd was a Sisyphean task to finish for the band. We ran into issue after issue during the production and, out of all the lyrics on the album, the ones for ‘Dead Horse’ are oddly precognisant as they deal with the feelings of hopelessness and frustration that we all are forced to endure in the daily grind. In many ways, they mirror the feelings of the band over the last couple of years with the prolonged hardships of the production of this record. At the same time, they are also a statement to never give up and staying true to your ideas and ideals and pushing through the bullshit, which we also did. There were many times along the way where we could have just said ‘fuck it’ and given up, but we didn’t and to me, that’s a point of pride. DIY never dies.”
Svårfödd is out November 24th.
Words: George Parr
