A striking return for the drone rock/ dark folk adventurer. – Backseat Mafia

Daniel Foggin, landscape gardener, guitarist, psych folk expressionist and drone rock interpreter works relentlessly. His creative portal Smote is now five albums into its journey with the venerable Rocket Recordings, an expedition which only began in 2021 with the folk trance deep-dive of ‘Droomin’. Since then Smote music has intensified, from rustic rhythm-driven psychedelic ceremonials to last year’s breathtaking ‘A Grand Stream’, an epic exploration of darker ritual soundscapes powered by essential riff repetition. Now with the fifth album ‘Songs From The Free House’ out on the shelves the question is are we ready for another venture into Smote’s rugged otherworld?

Your answer, after living with the new offering for a short time should without reservation be ‘yes’. Smote have more than built on the seemingly insurmountable ‘A Grand Stream’, honing its powers and shaping them into an album which is more focused and finely tuned. In interviews Foggin has said that he wanted ‘Songs From The Free House’ to be less draining and demanding on the listener but this new directness still had to retain an overall immersive power. Track one, The Cottar, shows that his aim has landed right on target.

It begins in a fog of disorientation, sounds lurking and lingering, an electronic thrum, a banshee pitch, whiplash roars that get suddenly whisked away. A sprightly, priggish flute song then remains with an echoed voice incanting something ominous as a distant post rock beat assumes itself. The reducer moment then explodes, a growling riff compressed into two notes of scouring distortion. The heaviness excavates a deep channel with Foggin’s lead lines squalling, absorbed in pure rock dynamism, pressing onwards until the Smote machine grinds to a signal jamming halt.

The immediate impression is that on this Smote album Foggin seems more focused and less likely to meander, wringing the most from that core sound rather than adding layer on top of mesmeric layer. He’s admitted when speaking of ‘Songs From The Free House’ that bringing in Sam Grant (Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs) as producer, rather than following his usual DIY approach, has quirkily broadened the vision of Smote music. It’s still a soundscape to lose yourself in but the route is often more immediate and less tentative. Take the rampant rhythms of Snodgerss where a jigging flute taunts a gut rumbling drone before pounding ritual noise locomotion cranks the energy upwards. It’s an exhilarating, three minutes fifty of tectonic trance music shot with Gnawa and Taranta sensibilities. The electrifying Wynne similarly gets straight to the point, a Morris dance for different times made chilling by the Loop-like vocal moan and a stooping guitar distorted to the brink of disfigurement. A tune that dares to stop mid-point, Wynne gathers itself abruptly then delivers a flagellating duotone riff which morphs into a bruising shanty sway.

As with previous Smote works the pagan and the ploughed land, folklore and forest secrets remain at the root of ‘Songs From The Free House’. Foggin though is drawn to the atmospherics, imagery and earthiness of folk, meaning his music is engrained with the enduring power of the natural rather than provenance or tradition. On this album The Linton Wyrm takes on a crucial role, a soundscape shaped by the 12th Century legend of John Somerville, his burning spear and the slaying of a dragon in Roxburghshire on the Scottish Borders. Opening with ringing guitar patterns which echo early Fairports and Harvest label prog-folk, a processional march strides out with Foggin’s sombre baritone, softened then uplifted by live band mate Sally Mason’s expansive vocals. The Linton Wyrm unwinds at length, a series of tense stand offs where guitars clang, wail and screech using Neil Young/ Weld co-ordinates and drums pummel with urgency. Lankum’s Ian Lynch coaxes the view finder skywards as his searing Uillean pipes glide over the onslaught while Foggin twists piercing notes from his fretboard, until The Wyrm eventually collapses in a moment of archetypal, juddering Smote turmoil.

It was during his time working on a farm near Linton that Foggin was first told the story of the Wyrm and so the track is more than a simple re-telling of a yarn. It’s forged through his appreciation of that landscape, a lived experience which is instilled in the song’s physicality. That close up relationship with land and soil is what gives Smote music its unique personality and which feeds its sheer force. Chamber, the new album’s longest track, again underlines that connection. Drawing on Foggin’s leaning towards voluminous dark electronica (he’s mentioned Danish noise artist Puce Mary and experimental metallists The Body as influences), the song purposefully works on contrasts to build apprehension. The flute again brings dynamic balance to the opening, its melody reverent and pining with an eastern twist to add to the mystery. As the drone shifts pitch Mason and Foggin’s stately vocals prologue a doom trudging quest. A song which references Earth’s revered minimalism, Chamber loops hypnotically around its ever-combustible riff as the vocal masses swell. The end disintegrates spectacularly, down to its final embers.

In the studio Foggin’s enthralling work may follow a less brutal trajectory than his band’s cataclysmic live outings, but as ‘Songs From The Free House’ again proves, Smote on record continues to strike deeper than most.

Get your copy of ‘Songs From The Free House‘ by Smote from your local record store or direct from Rocket Recordings HERE

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