Review Summary: Can I get a thumbs-up reaction if my audio is okay?
On the band’s 5th full-length, Swagger & Stroll Down the Rabbit Hole, Diablo Swing Orchestra craft exhilarating, genre-swapping soundscapes with assured gusto, but the experience is marred by a frustrating, muddy mix that makes me question if I’m being swindled by negative preconceptions or I’m simply hearing things wrong.
First off, I’d like to welcome everyone to the Zoom, I know you’ve all been patiently waiting to hear Diablo Swing Orchestra perform their latest record for you, they’re just getting set up right now, making some final touches to the overall mix. Make sure you have cameras turned on so we can see those bright, beautiful faces! Can I get a thumbs-up reaction if my audio is okay? It’s not, like, clipping or anything, right? Okay, I’m seeing some heads nodding. Thumbs-up emoji, great. All right, looks like the band is tuned up and ready to go. I’ll let them take it away from here.
What you experience is astounding. As a new-ish listener of the band who happened to win access to a VIP livestream event, watching this Swedish group consistently deliver track after track of head-turning progressive metal, classical music, and whatever else the band decides to play—it’s DSO so that’s pretty much a given—leaves you envigorated by the endless creativity of these technically-gifted musicians. But there is something sort of tickling your ear that you try to consciously ignore while the whole thing is going down:
Why am I listening to this audio through Zoom? The mix sounds very muddy, the midrange frequencies feel totally barren, and some of the bass tones sound like they’re clipping the audio. This is becoming a problem.
During the performance, you notice some users in the chat are getting the same vibe that something is not right here. A few raised-hand emojis pop up on listeners’ screens, hoping to address this issue. While the band chugs along, a moderator message pops up that “the audio is mixed the way the band intended it.” Now, you’re feeling real strange. You think,
I like what I’m hearing, but I also don’t like what I’m hearing, and I feel like that’s my fault.
Okay, let’s break from this hypothetical for a second. I legitimately thought there was something wrong with my headphones the first time I listened to DSO’s 5th record. What you just read is how I felt after listening to this through multiple devices on multiple streaming platforms. It felt like I was in a badly mixed livestream. I even downloaded the album lossless on Apple Music, and it turns out that’s the worst of the bunch. I want to know if I’m hearing things wrong, but according to the internet, other listeners have been noticing this problem since the singles were first released in 2021, so I’m not crazy.
Granted, it’s not easy to move past such a glaring inconvenience, the best I can do is tolerate it, and it’s frustrating because what’s being performed is, at times, exceptional. The songwriting is very dense instrumentally and the lyrical themes of war, death, and love tell vivid narratives that touch on worldwide issues, like our obsession with violence and corruption and the mental drain of living in a media-controlled society. Not only that but the vocal performances are stellar with no stone left unturned in terms of range. Just listen to those hilarious chicken sounds in “War-Painted Valentine” or the gorgeously-sung Spanish verses in “Celebremos Lo Envitable.” My favorite moments are when the band deviates from their core sound to execute something totally off-the-wall, like the danceable synths of “Out Came the Hummingbirds” or the haunting, ambient synergy of “The Sound of a Unconditional Surrender.” This is all very characteristic of a great record, but it is bogged down by a subpar mix that frankly disinterests me in listening further. What’s here is magical, it just wasn’t captured that way.
So, back in the Zoom, you recognize that what you heard was constructed and performed with technical ease, but there is no getting past what the audio engineers did to that performance. The initial trip was worth it, however, it’s not worth going down the rabbit hole again, at least not until the tracks are completely remixed or redone. If the people in charge of mixing are in on the joke, then that’s what it ended up being, a joke. You leave the room, open a new tab, and find something else to listen to.
