THE BEGGAR

Whenever I try to review an album, even if I scarcely do it, there's always the fear that all I'll put down is a mere slurry of cliched phrases and thoughtless praising to high heaven. So it comes as more of a challenge when Swans, a band I've championed for years, puts out a new album, and I'm faced with the dilemma of how to describe the gamut of feelings I go through while listening to their next two-hour monolith. Their evolution from monstrous no wave to epic, expansive post-rock is a sight to behold, releasing a near-perfect streak of albums throughout their 40-year career, taking the experimental rock world by storm... oops.

See? It's tough! It's tough to drop everything and resort to all these big compliments and purple prose. As someone who doesn't have much experience writing music reviews, the difficulty in coming up with something new and original to say for an album makes it seem like a truly impossible task. What's the point in saying anything about something if you're just gonna tread water and say the same things over and over again? I have to mull and toil to find new words to describe it. Thankfully, this album has some distinct talking points I can build from.

The Beggar is Swans' sixteenth studio album. It's another double album in the vein of their Trilogy, but it's not a return to the hard, pummelling, noisy energy. Instead, it picks up where Leaving Meaning left off and improves on the softer, folksier side of the band, combining it with those heavenly crescendos and what-have-you. I don't need to say what else describes the sound of Swans because it's been said many times before. If I said it here, that would be a dead end for the review. So now I'm gonna talk about what makes this album stand out amongst the others.

This album's main theme is about accepting death. Michael Gira is 69 years old, and he's aware that his time will come. When writing songs, he always has the mindset that the next album might be his last. With all things considered, this may very well be it. Solemnity mixed with fear is strong throughout the album, like on "Paradise is Mine" where he sings like he's intertwined with the initial minute tangles of the universe, wondering where it all came from as he chants the mantra "Is there really a mind?" On "Michael is Done" he lays it bare: he's getting old, he's wasting away, and eventually he'll be gone. The title track has the phrase "Will I remember how to live? When will I finally learned how to live?"as if he's desperate to cling to life, trying to piece together who/what he is. "No More of This" has Michael bidding goodbye to those he loves in preparation for the great wherever. He knows his fate, and he's ready...

....what am I doing here? I feel like the review is getting formulaic. I mean, inside my mind I can feel sentences forming but when I type them out, they don't sound the way I want them to... Perhaps this is the trouble with art. It never quite works out to be what you envisioned it as at first. The same goes for talking about it. What parts of it do you like? What do you think the artist could improve on? For me, reviewing albums is almost a Sisyphean task, but something about this album compelled me to write about it. This complex music exudes complex emotions; these big, indescribable thoughts. What is this?

There's a moment on the album where it all clicked for me and made me think "This is it." That moment was the song "The Beggar Lover (Three)". It's a 44-minute song, comprised of parts from past Swans songs like The Glowing Man, The Apostate, Cloud of Unknowing, and Leaving Meaning, along with recording of Michael's wife and child. It's similar to "Look at Me Go", the limited edition bonus disc that came with My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky. This song is the moment where the fear and anxiety disappears, and only acceptance remains. Pure, total acceptance. It's like Michael looking back on his life and wondering if what he created has answered all the questions he's been looking for. I came into this song without knowing what to expect. Hearing the sections of old songs intertwine with one another really got me thinking about how far they've come, long after the last chord of "The Memorious" faded out into the aether. I sat there in the silence. If this is it, then it it so, and I am satisfied.

The Beggar is Swans grappling with the truth: nothing lasts forever, and the end could be just around the corner. Michael is ready. The band is ready. Am I ready? Who am I anyway? Will I find my purpose in life because this album revealed it to me? Maybe not. I don't take this stuff for granted anyways. If this is their last album, then what a way to cap off their legacy. Forty years of uncompromising music, elating all who stay along for the ride. In a way, everyone is ready.

There's only one rating I can give this, and it's a perfect five stars. Viva Swans.