One hell of an artistic statement, A Perfect Life With A View Of The Swamp is everything that music, indeed art should be, vital, challenging, melodic, dissonant, adventurous, lyrically powerful. On paper, it shouldn't work. Metal, Hip Hop, Drum and Bass, Electronica and Folk shouldn't be able to be combined, sometimes all within the one track. Yet each track seamlessly flows into the next without being pretentious or trite, one begins to question where the boundaries between genres used to exist...

This is the sound of the London underground, a city where diversity and cultures collide and freely exchange ideas and influences like nowhere else. Where a night out starts in a badly lit seedy pub, and you drink pints standing shoulder to shoulder with 200 odd people watching some band dieing for their art on stage. You down a few pills, snarf a few lines and before you know it you're dancing to Hard House, Drum & Bass or Electronica in some club with 2,500 other ravers 'til you're spat into the streets at 6am, just in time for the sun to rise and burn your retinas, and another hour to wait until the tube starts. It was inevitable that these cultures would combine musically.

With 2 EPs released and record label problems delaying the release of this record, Miocene had almost slipped off the radar. Originally dubbed an English Tool clone, they shocked with their second EP being a trip hop influenced slice of Electronica that opened with of all things a Gregorian chant of the word "Ohm" which dissolved into screams and laughter. Miocene showed they were not afraid to alienate their traditional metal fans and tread new paths.  Recorded & produced by legendary punk rock producer Harvey Birrell (Buzzcocks, Ministry, Rachel Stamp, Bambi Slam, Therapy?, Senseless Things) of Southern Records and mixed by the same dude that did Aphex Twin, A Perfect Life With A View Of The Swamp was always going to be an impressive record. Even though citing similar artists is ridiculously lame and uninventive in terms of reviewing records, one hears elements of Squarepusher, Tool, DJ Shadow, Rage Against the Machine, Dizzy Rascal & Aphex Twin, amongst others.

This album is so diverse, emotional and uniquely inventive and is perhaps the most vital record released in years. The beauty of A Perfect Life With A View of The Swamp is that it tiptoes past the easy to fall over line of proggy pretentiousness without ever looking as though its going to trip over its own feet. At no time does it feel like some kind of smug art school concept album nonsense, where the writers got high as kites, floated off though the clouds & beamed back the music back from outer space.