Ugly beautiful music, contrasting the two as only they do. Swans continue their dark journey through angst driven by pathos, sick themes of Christianity, purityranny, alcoholism, nihilism, a journey that’s been going on close to 40 years now. Over the years this band has evolved from bombastic post-punk no-wave walls of distortion to a twisted almost “unplugged” version of such, incorporating female and even childrens vocals, “pretty” acoustic instruments (brass, piano, symphonic). But the two constants are and will always be: founder Michael Gira’s deep vocal delivery, and near-looped music themes that both hypnotize like a Buddhist chant and disturb as the sounds of a death chamber might. This newest release smacks of Jarboe era contrasts and lacks pure noise (been there done that). The evilution continues. FCCs 6, 12
1) (2:00) pleasant ambient experimental looped echoed guitar 2) (5:17) slow, with “pretty” music, Gira’s quintessential slow delivered phrasing dominates 3) (10:49) pensive beat and dark minor toned rock, “hanging man”, as always hypnotic and repetitive, tribal 4)* (5:50) acoustic guitar “loops” start this off, reminiscent of late 80’s works 5)* (11:22) pleasant “looping” theme with piano, acoustic guitar, big dreamy tone 6) FCCs (10:44) only Swans could make choral children's voices disturbing: another looping hypnotic disturbing slow strummed piece, no drums until midway when a good solid beat appears, safeharbor only 7) (7:49) another strange old school acoustic dirge, “who made us like this?”, torn from world of skin/children of god era 8)* (12:00) glacial start, with sparse drums, piano, string bass, etc, female lead vocals appear, slow phrasing of course, a near Buddhist chant 9)* (7:43) almost songlike with melodic theme, dare I say accessible? With traditional female background vocalizations 10) (7:09) looping yet again, disturbing for sure 11) (6:05) “pleasant” tone, makes it even weirder 12) Dammit, two FCCs! (6:27) has an old school Swans feel for sure, sex money sex, but without volume, still powerful with dubbed vocals, ouch “each child is sacred, each murdering man is sacred, fucking is sacred”, best song but safe harbor only…
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