Smote — Songs From the Free House

[Rocket Recordings — 2025]★★★★★

Reviewed 22 October 2025by Colin Lang

Smote's (aka David Foggin) latest release, Songs From the Free House, is a heavy work of tribal drumming, low-register chanting, and dense electronica, with a bit of Tolkien-like mythos sprinkled in.

Divided into five pieces, each with their own character but very much limbs of the larger beast, pay tribute to something primordial, Earthbound, not unlike other such endeavors on the metal-y end of the spectrum, such as Harvestman's recent Triptych trilogy, whose releases coincide with particular phases of the moon. There are wooden flutes (this is usually where I get off the train) and pounding drums, and a measured addition of electronic synthesis to round things out. Foggin is a master of the trajectory, composing with acumen and precision: the awareness of the final whole is deadly.

Things get rather chanty in the opener, "The Cottar", and the complexity of layered sounds builds from there. If the album is a celebration of something, it is an ominous one, as the darkness grows over the remaining tracks like a solar eclipse. What is truly unique about Songs From the Free House is the way things end, without fanfare or grand gestures; instead, it all begins to unravel, deconstructive and pretty discordant on the final piece, "Wynne". The nearest affinities to Smote's musical patois might be Om with a hint of Swans--not too shabby, if somewhat older.

Fans of the aforementioned groups will likely find Songs From the Free House a fitting expansion of the genre. Others not entirely convinced of the electronic/metal crossovers should put this on and scare the bejeezus out of the looming Trick-or-treaters