SWANS Vinilo y CD

Review: The Beggar is a mightily impressive 16th studio album from Swans. It is founding member Michael Gira who has written and produced it with some fine contributions from both current and past Swans members, plus members of Angels Of Light a guest spot from Ben Frost. This record emerged from the lockdowns of 2020 onwards and the sense of isolation that brought. The songs came easily, says Michael, once he came to terms with that and were informed by the fact that he worried these might be his last new writings. I they are, they are some of his best.

Review: There have been few experimental rock bands who've enjoyed (or perhaps endured) as tumultuous career as Swans. Since forming in 1982, they've broken up, reunited and changed personnel umpteen times, though bandleader Michael Gira has remained the creative force throughput. The Beggar, the band's latest album, is similarly turbulent in tone and approach, with Gira and company offering up sonically detailed, foreboding and off-kilter explorations that offer a more expansive and measured take on their trademark heady and often hallucinatory trademark sound. This is particularly evident on disc two opener 'The Beggar Lover (Three)', a shapeshifting, 45-minute instrumental meditation peppered with found sounds and recycled samples from their Soundtracks For The Blind album.

Review: It's hard not to feel moved by Swans. To quote Wayne's World, it's not just a clever name, but rather a band every bit as graceful yet ferocious, beautiful but strong as the bird borrowed from. Take "Annaline", for example. As the first track-proper of this spellbinding collection it's a stop-you-in-your-tracks masterpiece that could force silence on a stadium despite being softly spoken, subtle and serene. It's a motif the outfit seem focused on for this, their 15th studio album. Even at its loudest, title track "Leaving Meaning" mostly plays out like a deranged sermon in some temple of experimental rock. "Sunfucker", for example, has enough reversed-out refrains to make anyone feel they might be in over their head with forces they can't see, let alone comprehend. "It's Coming It's Real" is a display of dark hypnosis. "The Hanging Garden" paints nervous abstract pictures with psychedelic-leaning guitar hooks and manic vocal cries. Put simply, it's perhaps their tensest, most introverted and spellbinding work to date.