Swans / Leaving Meaning
Album: Leaving Meaning   Collection:General
Artist:Swans   Added:Nov 2019
Label:Young God Records  

A-File Activity
Add Date: 2019-11-09 Pull Date: 2020-01-11
Week Ending: Jan 12 Dec 29 Dec 22 Dec 15 Dec 8 Nov 24 Nov 17 Nov 10
Airplays: 2 1 1 3 2 2 3 1

Recent Airplay
1. Aug 20, 2021: Get Punk'd (rebroadcast from Jan 14, 2020)
It's Coming It's Real
4. Jan 08, 2020: The Fuzz Deli
Hums
2. Jan 14, 2020: Get Punk'd
It's Coming It's Real
5. Dec 26, 2019: Organic Fruit Tracks
Amnesia
3. Jan 11, 2020: On The Warpath
The Nub
6. Dec 21, 2019: On The Warpath
The Nub

Album Review
Your Imaginary Friend
Reviewed 2019-11-06
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…

Track Listing
1. Hums   7. Cathedrals Of Heaven
2. Annaline   8. The Nub
3. The Hanging Man   9. It's Coming It's Real
4. Amnesia   10. Some New Things
5. Leaving Meaning   11. What Is This
6. Sunfucker   12. My Phantom Limb