SWANS

By 1986 SWANS was starting to evolve past its origins out of the no wave scene that briefly took New York City by storm and was splintering off into new arenas of experimentalism. While many of these groups would simply just fade away after leaving their mark, SWANS was one of the few to continue on to the present day by constantly reinventing itself without losing that initial impetus of making bleak noisy minimalism. One of the first significant changes emerged on this short EP (some call it a single) titled TIME IS MONEY (BASTARD) / SEALED IN SKIN.

This marked the debut of Jarboe who had left the swamps of Louisiana to engage in the world of experimental rock and stage music in New York City. She had been a fan of SWANS since the "Filth" album and contacted Michael Gira who recognized the band needed to move past its origins and evolve into something completely new. This EP / single features three tracks. TIME IS MONEY finds the band jumping into the world of industrial rock in the vein of Come, early Big Black and Alien Sex Fiend only SWANS retained the bleakness and dread of its no wave albums "Filth" and "Cop."

The second track SEALED IN SKIN features a slowed down return to the no wave form only less abrasive without the guitar distortion and grunge that made the first two albums so abrasive. This track finds Gira's vocals sound like a moaning mummy as he monotonously bellows baritone vocals alongside a monotonous dirge-like motif that offers little variation from in terms of musicality. The EP / single ends with a remix of TIME IS MONEY (BASTARD) which features a beefed up percussion and more echoey guitar presence. Not as industrial sounding as the first track but offers a glimpse of what Alien Sex Fiend would adopt as its sound once it evolved out of its deathrock routine.

At this point Jarboe's duties were limited to merely screaming on the album but it helped her establish a connection with the band that would allow her to expand her own musical talents and ideas into the world of SWANS. Of course this band, especially the earlier 80s releases are an acquired taste that many find too harsh, too monotonous or just too weird but personally i find the magic is in the hypnotic effect of the bleak tones and timbres, the mesmerizing rhythms and the simplistic procession of it all. It's an entirely different way of perceiving music but one that ultimately works to a satisfying level for my ears. Gira did an excellent job of nudging SWANS along into new arenas and not just jumping headfirst into a new style completely. These songs never appeared on any SWANS album so you have to hunt these down separately but i personally find these as essential as any of the earliest caustic SWANS releases.

It was also a fruitful time of rediscovery as the GREED / Holy Money recording sessions that lasted from June 1985 - January 1986 produced enough material to release not one but two albums in '86 and then the year was topped off with a massive tour and the first SWANS live release "Public Castration Is a Good Ideal." But wait! THere's more! The band ended the year with yet another EP titled "A Screw." It was the year of the dollar sign since every one of these releases featured a prominently artistic variation of the $ sign all of which signified the biggest changes in the entire history of the band's long run as an established experimental rock act. Together these $ releases seemed to collectively express a total disdain for the world of power and wealth obtained through the financial fraud the world has been overtaken by.

GREED was the first album to emerge after the "Time Is Money" single and therefore the first album to feature Jarboe as a permanent member of the band only this time her backing vocals are more prominent than mere background screaming. Her wordless vocals provide a new form of instrumentation to add to the overall depressive atmosphere of GREED which found the band shedding its no wave origins and blossoming into a strange no wave / industrial rock hybrid. Fortified by two bassists and THREE drummers, GREED is percussion dominated powerhouse that finds SWANS moving on from the caustic guitar driven angst of the first two albums and instead finding a new form of depressive despair as its main emotional outlet.

Brilliantly continuing the essential aspects of no wave that avoid melodic motifs like the plague, GREED maintains that abstract detached feel of the first two albums only adds implied melodies carried out through atonality and dissonance. The plodding percussive drives make this album sound like a funeral procession and i wouldn't be surprise if funeral doom metal was inspired by this stage of SWANS' career. GREED is a rather bleak affair with seven tracks that add up to almost 38 minutes of nihilistic and ominous repetitive processions through some of the darkest musical tones and timbres you can experience. The album has been compared to a bizarre religious cult ritual soundtrack but i find it more like a form of oozing anarchy.

The opening "Fool" offers something completely new to the SWANS playbook, namely a demented piano that does indeed offer a somewhat melodic approach however this tactic restrains itself and allows the cyclical loops to let the dark atmospheres to play around. Gira's vocals have moved on from raging angst to a more contemplative and depressive tone. His droning vocal style of yore actually sings on this opening track and thus the new SWANS is born however the opening track only ushers in the new era as the album continues in a similarly minimalist approach that the no wave years employed. The album also features samples, tape operations and other sound effects as well as Jarboe's blood curdling baking vocals and the aforementioned piano parts.

The name of the game with GREED is pure dissonance and atonal counterpoints that all conspire to craft one disturbing melancholic march through complete musical alienation and sparseness. The incessant flow of percussive beats on steroids is punctuated by moments of silence, the abrasive guitar and bass lines that accompany and the contrapuntal effect of Gira's downer vocal style along with Jarboe's nails on the chalkboard vocal approach. The album is incessant in how it ratchets up the tension until the more caustic than thou grand finale "Money Is Flesh" which just pummels away with staccato tom drumming and atonal guitar freakery. This is true industrial bleakness bliss! This particular track sounds unique compared to the others as it has some sort of bellowing sample sound that wails away.

While many consider this period one of SWANS' weakest, i have to say that i love this album quite a bit as it delves into some of the most barren soundscapes possible and yet finds ways to subtly offer some of the weirdest and strangest alienating results. While the angst had been channeled to despair, it makes a full comeback by the end of the album and it ends with a barren bang. So many adjectives can describe GREED: discouraging, bleak, dismal, gloomy, hopeless, dreary, sombre, raw, desolate, harsh, severe but most of all this album is tempestuous as it has an unresolved uneasiness about it that works so well! Obviously this sort of extremity is an acquired taste and i have no idea how i acquired it but if you accept what the band is going for on its own terms then you can't deny that SWANS did an absolutely excellent job of conveying what it aimed for. You may not like it but you can't deny that the results of its sweltering banter is not effective in what it sets out to achieve which i guess is engage is musical sado-masochism!

The "Greed" and HOLY MONEY sessions were fruitful and yielded two albums worth of material. The first studio album of 1986 was "Greed" which found the band slowly morphing from the caustic noisy no wave abrasiveness to a more diverse array of stylistic approaches that incorporated more instrumentation, focus on the atmospheres rather than brutality and the debut of vocalist Jarboe who would stick around for several albums and add a feminine touch to the testosterone fueled rage-fest that the no wave albums exuded with abundance. HOLY MONEY was basically the double album companion that was released a month after "Greed" and ratcheted up the band's evolution a few more notches. This album was the first to find Jarboe contributing lead vocals on "You Need Me" as well as offering the first taste of acoustic moments such as on the near 8-minute track "Another You," however even this track is noisy and dissonant as water is wet.

While still retaining the bleak dirge-like processions of "Greed," HOLY MONEY also featured fleeting elements from the blues by adding select harmonica moments as well as allowing more contrapuntal elements to accrue for a greater atmospheric approach. While the opening "A Hanging" exhibits a throwback to the no wave era, "A Screw (Holy Money)" offers a more pure industrial rock approach only set to the doomy gloomy monotony that SWANS had made all its own. Michael Gira delivers a similar vocal approach to "Greed" with a dreadful downtuned moaning style that borders on mumbling and mimicking a mummy from some Hollywood film. In tandem all the elements on board keep the dissonant and atonalities humming along with jangly guitar chords sustaining over thunderous percussive and bass drives.

On many tracks it sounds like no wave style of SWANS has totally merged with some of the industrial rock bands of the 80s such as Foetus, Big Black, Helios Creed or even Einstürzende Neubauten. Far from accessible, the changes on HOLY MONEY compared to "Greed" are subtle and minor additions but nevertheless showcase a whole plethora of new approaches that would allow SWANS to emerge from its cocoon and emerge as the butterfly that it would become on the following "Children Of God" which found the band coming of age as a totally newly reincarnated act. Basically HOLY MONEY is a companion album to "Greed" and the two have since been released together albeit with track order differences. There is nothing on HOLY MONEY that will convert SWANS haters if the idea of caustic dissonant and molasses slow dirging processions aren't your bailiwick.

This is some of the bleakest musical expressions ever to have emerged and SWANS had knack for delivering the goods in a way that kept the no wave detachment relevant all the while crafting a more post-rock generated delivery system. Personally i love this caustic stew of creative torture. It's totally unique and even though these transition albums seem to be some of the least loved albums in the vast canon of the world of SWANS, i find them endearing and just as relevant as the no wave albums that proceed as well as the more ambitious art rock sounds that follow. A niche market for sure but for those who have acquired the taste, HOLY MONEY is a beastly delectable morsel of experimental industrial / no wave brilliance.

PUBLIC CASTRATION IS A GOOD IDEA was recorded on the "Greed" and "Holy Money" tour from performances in London and Nottingham, England. While originally released as an indie bootleg, the recordings were approved by SWANS and thus officially became its first live album and self-released however it wouldn't be until 1999 that the Thirsty Ear label would finally release the album on CD form. This one is a lengthy beast that despite featuring only eight tracks takes up 74 minutes of playing time. Like the albums, SWANS toured with a guitarist, bassist and THREE drummers! The percussive bombast at this stage in the SWANS sound was integral in crafting that bombastic dirge-like military march procession tension that allowed all the atonalities and dissonance to wreak its sonic havoc.

Michael Gira, the mastermind of SWANS also played occasional bass guitar as well as offered his bedeviled moaning techniques for delivering his bleak and gloomy lyrics but in the live setting he also implemented many of the samples and sound effects although for the most part PUBLIC CASTRATION IS A GOOD IDEA has a much more stripped down approach than the studio albums. While many bands just play their music much as it sounds on the albums, the music on this live album that features tracks from only the "Greed" and Holy Money" albums do exhibit enough differences to warrant making this excellent live recording an essential part of your SWANS canon. Although not substantially different than the studio recordings, enough variations make it an interesting listen however PUBLIC CASTRATION does feel more jarring through its atonalities and minimalism than the spruced up studio recordings.

These live versions are real sprawlers. For example the opening "Money Is Flesh" from the "Greed" album is only over 6 minutes on the studio album and on PUBLIC CASTRATION is doubled to over 12. Likewise "Fool" originally at 5 1/2 has been extended to over 8. The lengthy repetitive sequences give these live renditions and even gloomier and more depressive veneer than the studio tracks. Another main difference is that in the moments of silence between drums and quite time there's also a use of the echo effect from the venues acoustical layout. Overall this live album will be of little interest to non-SWANS fans trying to acquire a taste for the band's avant-garde extremism as this period and the earlier recordings crafted some of the most inaccessible and cacophonous din of the band's career but served as a gateway to the more experiment arty albums that followed. While i'm not the hugest fan of live albums i really love some of the sounds they get from the echoey drumming and the overall torturous bleakness of it all. SWANS proves it was not limited to the studio on this release and made an excellent live act.

During the ambitious year of 1986, SWANS released the two studio albums "Greed" and "Holy Money" which led to a tour which spawned the bootleg turned bonafide live album "Public Castration Is A Good Idea" but the band also released two shorter EPs that some call singles in the form of "Time Is Money (Bastard) / Sealed in Skin" which featured the first appearance of Jarboe and at the end of the year released this three track EP titled A SCREW.

This one is basically a remix EP that features two different versions of the title track with programmed percussion, a more electro-industrial sound not too overly distant from bands like Skinny Puppy and a rather reggae / dub sort of syncopation. Less abrasive and less gloomy than the albums that preceded, A SCREW was the most "normal" sounding release by SWANS at the time.

The track "Blackmail" is completely different as it features the piano as the primary instrument with Jarboe on lead vocals and eschews all the industrial dance grooves and remains an ethereal Cocteau Twins / Dead Can Dance type of track only with the repetitive monotony that SWANS was delivering at this stage in its career. This one is actually a highly stripped down track with only Jarboe's vocals (including her own background vocals) and the cyclical post-rock style of piano looping along with a creepy atmospheric backdrop. It sounds more like a snippet than an actual song.

This one is rather unnecessary as it's the least compelling of any SWANS release of the 80s and these days these three tracks are simply added to the newer releases of "Holy Money" as bonus tracks therefore there is absolutely no need to track down this EP unless of course you are a completist and collector of all things SWANS. And these really sound like bonus tracks as there is nothing special going on here yet worthy of checking out and more than worthy as bonus tracks. This was the last release of 1986 before SWANS totally reinvented itself and debuted its new style of experimental rock with "Children Of God" the following year.

I have been a fan of pretty much everything this band has cranked out right from the no wave industrial noise rock of 1983's 'Filth' to folk and drone fueled totalism meets post-rock on the more recent albums like 'The Glowing Man' however with 2019's 'leaving meaning' i was actually left cold as Gira's approach had shifted significantly from a hypnotic detached methodology to one that incorporated Gothic country and Neofolk however what i hated the most about that album was vocal style that sounded as if it was trying to emulate happy-go-lucky pop artists from the 50s and 60s. That album was a complete dud to many and it seemed SWANS might have run out of steam.

No such problem though as Gira hasn't successfully navigated the decades by not paying attention to the reaction of the fans. He experienced a similar hiccough with 2010's 'My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky,' which personally i love but many did not. Apparently GIra got the memo and on THE BEGGAR returns to that same mopey vocal delivery like he just woke up from a series of bad dreams and is here to recount his experience through poetic prose set to a menagerie of post-rock, neofolk, droning, sound collages, ambience, gothic rock, avant-folk and even a bit of goth country. This time around though he succeeds in his efforts given that this formula of simplified music based on melodramatic continuity can be very fragile and any particular element skewed in any particle direction can result in a total derailment of tolerability.

I don't know how he does it but beginning with 2012's 'The Seer,' SWANS only releases double albums or at least the modern equivalent of what would once be considered as such. THE BEGGAR is another sprawling series of tracks that collectively slink past the two hour mark at nearly 122 minutes! While not as dark and depressive as earlier SWANS albums, THE BEGGAR seems to reject the overt happy campiness of 'leaving meaning' but not jettison it altogether. Gira seems to have simply refined that formula by connected it more successfully to the stylistic approaches of the past with a continuity that allows a two hour plus album to not lose its momentum. With only 11 tracks, the majority are lengthy sprawlers but in reality the second to the last track 'The Beggar Lover (Three)' consumes almost 44 minutes of this album's playing time!

What makes many SWANS albums to intriguing is that they are instantly likable with no digging required to connect to receive an instant impact but yet find many subtleties buried beneath the surface. An ominous mix of goth-tinged post-rock with ethereal atmospheres and processional cyclical loops that meander for large chunks of time, THE BEGGAR also features a lot of lap steel guitar sounds as well as many ethnic instrumentation such as the dulcimer, fujara or duduk. Gira employs seven musicians and two vocalists to bring THE BEGGAR its magical hypnotic touches and does so triumphantly.

Somehow in the modern world where attention spans have been reduced to mere blurbs, SWANS has managed to memorize the listener with lengthy sprawling musical compositions. While this album is great, the best track is the longest. At nearly 44 minutes, 'The Beggar Love (Three)' has a running time of a traditional vinyl length album and yet it is the best and most hauntingly beautiful track on the entire album. SWANS is best when it is allowed to just slowly drift into a world of its own making. This hypnotic and ethereal dreamy track just perfectly ratchets up the perfect tension with a beautiful atmospheric accompaniment that works in tandem with the martial rhythmic grooves that culminates in a heftier rock sequence around the 20-minute mark. A few minutes later the music drops out altogether and becomes a series of percussive chaos and spoken word samplings. In short the track is the perfect marriage of drone, ambient, post-rock and miscellaneous sound effects. The album ends with its most energetic, 'The Memorious' which exits on a fiery note.

Overall THE BEGGAR shows that SWANS is in no way of danger of burning out. Gira is has an uncanny ability to keep cranking out engaging albums that on paper sound as if they should bore you to tears. SWANS albums are very difficult to describe because words can't really convey the depths of emotional responses that they evoke. Gira has proven time and time again that he can go against the grain at every step of the way and still provide something captivating in a manner that no other has quite latched onto. It's hard to believe that some 41 years after SWANS was created that yet another album emerging in 2023 will surely rank right up there with other masterful creations. Is this SWANS' best album? I wouldn't go that far. I don't think albums like 'Children Of God' can ever be topped. Even more recent albums like 'The Seer' and 'To Be Kind' are more varied and interesting but there is no doubt that THE BEGGAR doesn't not disappoint from beginning to end and for that i must applaud Michael Gira and his endless wellspring of creativity that shows no sign of letting up. Bravo!

CD 1 (69:08) 1. "The Parasite" (8:21) (17/20) 2. "Paradise Is Mine" (9:23) (17.25/20) 3. "Los Angeles: City of Death" (3:29) (8.5/10)

4. "Michael Is Done" (6:08) 'tron, female b vox, whispered vocal but it's all about attaining orgasm (in order to be finished with ? life?). The second, instrumental motif is like music from a 1960s pop song. (Is that Michael's idea of Heaven/Nirvana?) At least this makes it mildly more entertaining than the previous 20 minutes of the album. (8.6667/10)

5. "Unforming" (5:55) is Michael even really trying to sing? The C&W sound palette works okay for this song--making it mildly more interesting than the album's first 20 minutes--and there's even a climax at the end with the "freedom" proclamation. (8.66667/10)

6. "The Beggar" (10:15) nice foundation laid down from the opening.. Even Michael's forceful singing of his ominous lyrics is somehow engaging. The ramp up at the very end of the fourth minute is great (despite its CURE/COCTEAU TWINS sound and feel). The final ramp up at 8:00 is awesome and powerful. A top three song for me. (18/20)

7. "No More of This" (6:55) the music is a little dull and dirgey, but the vocal(s) is compelling. (13.25/15)

8. "Ebbing" (11:04) music supporting a Buddhist chant fest. (17.5/20)

9. "Why Can't I Have What I Want Any Time That I Want?" (7:38) the most engaging, compelling, creative, fully- developed, articulate, and lyrically-impressive song on the first disc. I love the eerie arrangement of the background vocalists and the fuller-musical weave of multiple instruments each adding their own important and distinctive thread to the song. A top three song. (14/15)

CD 2 (52:29) 10. "The Beggar Lover (Three)" (43:51) (Not on the LP) - Constantly morphing orchestral chordal discord over the first three minutes is so awesome! So much like the music I came to know and love from my first Swans acquisition, The Seer. Then we move to tubular bells, droning harmonium-like sound, and gentle seaside Brian Eno-like tuned percussion hits before and while a female voice recites (as if from a film soundtrack) a soliloquy about what life after death will be like. At the five-minute mark we move into an earthquake of percussion play. Steel-bending saw guitar and synth sounds soon join in. Drumming ends as church organ, orchestral bass notes, and an eerie chord is sung by a female choir for a minute or so before synths and other orchestral instruments provide a chilling PRESENT-like fabric over which Michael begins speaking lullaby words like "milk" and "sleepy close your eyes" in the eleventh minute. In the 12th minute fast-drummed metallic tuned percussives somehow supplant the organ-bass-choir motif with their own disturbing "alarm." This, in turn, is seemlessly supplanted 90 seconds later by a more space-industrial motif of synths and robotic rhythm instruments. These ghost-like synths are awesome over/with the plodding, relentless momentum supplied by the bass, synths, cymbals, and voice samples. Great section! At 18:00 a long, pulsing, CURE-like instrumental passage takes over, carrying us to the 22:00 mark where all instruments cut out leaving us only the mostly-female vocal choir to carry the song in its own constantly-morphing chordal flow. At 24:00 a bird-like screeching violin takes over, a cappella, for a full minute before a vocal diction coach enters to teach us vocal sounds before a different drum cascade provides the background for infant/baby vocalizations followed by toddler words & nursery rhymes ("This Old Man") as recited by a young boy. At 27:30 there is another transition led by droning guitar note before finger-picked acoustic guitar arpeggi and synth notes weave together to provide a kind of monotone carpet roll while a young child interjects an occasional "Da-ad!" or squeal. After reaching the 30-minute mark adult voices make their appearances over the guitar-synth carpet roll: first with adult male vocalizations then with a long rolling drone of sustained female choir notes (lasting about 90 seconds). Then, at 32:05, everything shifts again, back to a rolling drumming sequence from some tympanic-like drums. At 33:30 a single strummed guitar arpeggi begins a long repeat (loop) as jazz double bass and drum play (mostly cymbals and rim shots with the occasional bass drum and snare hits) join in. At 35:40 Michael joins in with his two-tone voice reciting a kind of DAVID BYRNE/ADRIAN BELEW-like list of things he "can" do with "it." Keys/synths and smooth/relaxing runs from tuned percussion join in as the jazz foundation and droning voice-list continue into the 44th minute--right to the song's end. I'm so glad Michael decided to give the listener something peaceful and relaxing to sink into! It is so difficult to sustain high-quality music, complete with tension and engaging melody or interesting components, over the length of 44 minutes, but this song does so fairly well--which I was not expecting after the inconsistent (and often maudlin simplicity of the) first CD (especially the first three songs). And what makes this long epic even more exceptional is the way it is always flowing and morphing into something totally fresh and new about every 90 seconds--which means there are about 30 palettes or motifs to the tapestry! Definitely another top three song for me and one of the best long-playing prog epics of 2023. (86/90)

11. "The Memorious" (8:38) old rhythms and pacing with "Da-ad" vocal epithets from a toddler and undistinguishable adult vocalizations open this one. At 1:30 a male voice begins a recitation of some poetry over the top of everything else. This is old, classic Swans with some simple King Crimson-like guitar patterning and Iggy Pop-like spoken vocals. The bursts of choir chords in the background are this time male-dominated. A decent but not outstanding song. (17.66667/20)

Total Time 121:37

Would that lyrics/words were my reason for listening to music I might like this album more. Musically those first three songs are so boring, simplistic, and repetitive--and so lyric-dependent--that I felt lost--forlorn that there was no way in hell that I could possibly end up liking this album. But, thank goodness I kept going as the music and songs gradually began to get better, become more engaging and interesting, so that I was drawn back to try all of the first songs over again. (I still don't like them.) The choir of female background vocalists helps but it's often just not enough to elevate these songs into engaging above monastic chants. Thank goodness for everything after "The Beggar" and especially the 44-minute "The Beggar Lover (Three)"--one of the best long-playing prog epics I've heard in a long time. IN short, this is an inconsistent album that really pays off big time if you stick with it (yes: all the way through its 121 minutes).

A-/five stars; a minor masterpiece of progressive rock music--highly recommended to any prog lover to try out for themselves.

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.

To put this in words that any well-versed prog fan can understand, the music on 'Soundtracks for the Blind' is like a mixture of The Residents and Klaus Schulze. The Residents for their powerful ability to scare anyone through music and vocals and Klaus Schulze for his use of electronics and droning, spacey passages of music. And like both artists, this music is dark. It is demented. Michael Gira's deep vocals add to this factor. The songs on this album have a somber, hopeless atmosphere to them. 'Helpless Child', my favorite song on this album, shows this perfectly. The vocals and lyrics are mysterious and depressing. The music is lowkey and delicate. The song titles are dark too. 'I Was A Prisoner In Your Skull', 'Her Mouth is Filled with Honey' (my mental image of a woman choking on globs of honey doesn't help), and 'How They Suffer' show this well. But "Soundtracks" isn't all demented and spacey. Some of what I like to call "clear songs" like 'Yum-Yab Killers', 'All Lined Up', and 'Blood Section' seem to be rooted more in punk and traditional rock as opposed to post-rock. And some songs are just plain weird: like 'Volcano', a warped pop song. Female vocals are cheery but the music is creepy. Distorted keyboard sounds interrupt the flow of the song and make the atmosphere very uncomfortable. Close to the end the lyrics get quite disturbing although the vocals maintain cheery and innocent. 'Red Velvet Wound' is a happy folk song with strings and keyboard overpowering the original audio until it fades out. Definitely weird. With twenty-six songs, this album has much material to zone out to. This record, like many other Swans albums, reely puts you through the motions, the good, the bad, and the ugly (and this music has a fair share of the two latter!). Highly recommend this wonderful post-rock album. Prog on!