Bobby Crow (Signs Of The Swarm): Six Songs To Die With

We have neither the budget nor the imagination of BBC Radio, so we've borrowed from their Desert Island Discs program to bring you our own scaled-down version, dubbed Six Songs To Die With. We ask a noteworthy musical guest to select the six songs they'd be stranded with on an obligatory desert island. Hypothetically, said guest will be dying on this island, so they've been advised to choose wisely. Selections appear in no particular order.

Bobby Crow: Yo what’s up, this is Bobby (drums/songwriter @ Signs of the Swarm) and these are my 6 songs to die with. If you know me you probably see these coming from a mile away but here we go.

Meshuggah

"Straws Pulled At Random"

Big shock here haha, but Meshuggah definitely changed my perception of what heavy music could be when I was growing up. If you’re a fan I don’t need to explain, but they deliver a groove that you feel in your spine and it just forces me to uncontrollably bob my head. This song in particular always stuck out to me. There’s something about the (ironic) randomness to the structure here and how it flows into the whole last 2 minutes as an instrumental section that hits just right. It’s so heavy but they find a way to hit you in the feels with a beautiful choice of melody and a surprisingly simple choice of notes for a guitar solo. ‘Nothing’ is a top 3 album for me forever.

Rammstein

"Deutschland"

Believe or not I take a ton of influence from this band! I love that they chose to take the “ACDC approach” over the years and just let the music do the talking. It’s super interesting to me how a German speaking band can seem to break so many language barriers and pull tens of thousands of people to a stadium in almost any country. I always found their electronic influence very interesting and it’s something we’ve sort of subconsciously carried over to our band. Again, beauty in simplicity here!

Greyhaven

"Echo and Dust Pt 1"

So this one’s a bit interesting; I came up in a small underground scene in my hometown of Wheeling, West Virginia, and we had a few amazing “chaotic” metalcore bands from this area in my younger years. Greyhaven holds close to that vibe and kind of teleports me back to a place that not many bands can these days. I had the pleasure of performing with them in Texas a few years back, and this song just HITS live. It’s brilliantly catchy and the ending is so knuckle-draggingly heavy it just brings something out of me. I love the “twang” and the melody mixed together in this track - it just kind of feels like home.

Deftones

"Rosemary"

Like so many others I am a diehard Deftones and Abe Cunningham fan. Abe’s laid back approach just hits all the right spots for me. Rosemary in particular takes me straight back to our second time touring Japan - one of my favorite places in the world. This song and specifically this album, ‘Koi No Yokan’, were the soundtrack to that trip for us. We made sure to have it play directly after our set each day and it just set the vibe for the rest of the night. Again, the mix of heavy grooves and beautiful melody are what jump out to me here… I’m seeing a pattern in my taste I guess?!

Gojira

"Mouth of Kala"

Gojira is a NO BRAINER on any list of mine. Pretty much my go-to band for crushing drums and riffs. Maybe a hot take but I think L’Enfant Savage is my favorite record from the band. The whole record is jaw-dropping from a drummer's perspective but this song specifically is so primal and aggressive. One thing I adore about this band is that the more you listen, the more you find! The short quarter-note breaks in the intro make you feel like you’re being CRUSHED and that’s pretty much everything I look for in heavy music, just that feeling of hearing something bigger than yourself and feeling it deep in your bones. Gojira Forever.

Movements

"Daylily"

So, I wanted to throw a bit of a curveball in here. As you’ll probably hear from most heavy bands we don’t listen to as much metal together in the van or on the road as you might expect. It’s not head banging 24/7. Especially on long drives through the night across the country here in the US, we really enjoy our “cool down” playlists after a long day of hearing riffs and breakdowns at 100+ db. Movements used to be a guilty pleasure of mine but these days I don’t really have any guilty pleasures and I’ve come to just embrace what I like. I’ve seen Movements a few times, but I had the opportunity to catch them here in Pittsburgh a few years ago at a really rough time in my life and ‘Daylily’ hit a bit extra for me that night, and that feeling has stuck with me for a long time. So I think ‘Feel Something’ deserves a proper shout here.