Classic or Dud: Swans

"So now we're off on a new journey, by reigniting swans I've unlocked the trunk where I'd trapped my demon brother. Now that he's out again I am wrestling with him and am determined this time to not only kill him, but all his friends and family as well."

http://thequietus.com/articles/04724-michael-gira-review-new-swans-album-my-father-will-guide-me-up-a-rope-to-the-sky

otm, saw swans on the burning world tour and they were plenty loud

man I saw em on burning world & then on great annihilator

former was polite volume, latter was pummeling

I'm not sure if this is selling me on going or not. I know if I don't, part of me is really gonna regret it. Either way really looking forward to the album...really should have gone for the "oh and send me the finished CD option when ordering that Gira demos fundraiser CD".

saw them on final tour and it was up there with the two or three loudest concerts i've ever seen. not even sure if i'm physically strong enough to handle them this time around.

^^^^^
I was kind of dancing around the issue, but yeah, this.

I saw them on the Children of God tour, and it was ridiculously, unpleasantly, horribly loud. It was so crushingly slow that you had time to anticipate and dread each snare hit, which was like a cannon going off in your face. It was an abslolute endurance test to get through it, and despite loving them I couldn't decide whether I was actually enjoying seeing them (in all truth, and with the benefit of 20+ years hindsight I can admit that, no, it wasn't fun.

Still glad I went though.

I'd see them again in a heartbeat, but I'd take ear-plugs.

haha i think i'll be taking those firing-range headphones roger miller wears to be honest.

It was the same on the '97 tour, Gira was constantly urging the soundman to wring every last ounce of volume out of whatever PA the venue served up.

ha way way upthread i said that the ICA/Public Castration gig was the loudest thing I'd ever experienced, but since then I've seem some noise dudes who were def louder - Hijokaidan, for one. but yeah, 'pummeling' is almost exactly the right adjective - that sense/feeling of the next whomp descending, like a hammer.

also saw em on the children of god tour and didn't think it was that loud, really, and i wouldn't be surprised if they're not that fierce this time out, either. gira seems to find the whole mega-volume question/prob a bit wearying these days, and i'm sure there'll be an element of expectation-confounding. WE SHALL SEE.

L34k3d.

i didn't leak it i swear. i played it a lot in public in my record store though. does that count?

forgot to play it yesterday for th*r*t*n when he was in. would have been fun to hear his opinion. i do want to see swans in boston but i'm too cheap and i hate going to boston and i am frightened of baby dee.

yes I went to your store and memorised it and then digitally reproduced it bit by bit and then leaked it.

on first listen I like this a lot, sounds like Swans without being retready.

Any West Coast dates? I really wanna see Swans, they're like one of the only "goth" things I like.

OK maybe the Cure

09-17 Boston, MA - House of Blues
09-21 Northampton, MA - Calvin Theater

tempted to go the Boston show. scott, isn't the Northampton one pretty close to where yr at?

scott if you go to the boston show I will protect you from baby dee

and don't listen to markers, he's trying to trick you into seeing broken social scene

woah i didn't even see a northampton date when i looked! and when i looked, like, last week they were playing at the middle east and not house of blues! i'm confused! will totally go to the hamp show! a week before my birthday too.

oh okay. that got me all excited.

wait, i fucked up on those tour dates

sry yall

http://pitchfork.com/news/38743-reformed-swans-announce-tour/

scrolled down too much and accidentally copied bss dates

only the middle east :-(

man I saw em on burning world & then on great annihilator

former was polite volume, latter was pummeling

― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Thursday, August 5, 2010 10:11 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark

sometimes I wonder if ppl's experience of swans is colored by what venue they saw them at? I wouldn't call their burning world show at CBGBs pummeling but I couldn't in fairness call it polite.

a friend told me the last time they played boston gira complained non-stop about the sound, stopped the show early, and stormed off saying he'd never play the middle east again. so where's the boston show this time around? o right, the middle east.

Very positive (but rather woolly) review of the new album in the new Wire -- makes me look forward to this even more.

last show i saw at the middle east downstairs (not sure if the swans is up or down) was harry and the potters iirc

gotta be downstairs, if it's upstairs god have pity on our souls + ears

last time i saw swans was swans are dead tour at the troc in philly and it was awesome. plenty loud but you didn't die from loud. sounded great. that's where they are opening the tour. i think. last time i checked.

bouncer i knew who worked at the troc said the loudest show he had worked was mogwai at tla. and from people i know who went, the last time godflesh played philly it was louder than the loudest loud. people visibly swooning from loud...

I heard when swans played the troc on the children of god tour they blew the power 3 times and called it a night

woulda been pissed if I'd gone but it was 21+ and I was 21-

haven't mbv taken the title now? I mean I didn't see them on their last tour but even the bootleg recordings sound louder than the loudest loud.

> I heard when swans played the troc on the children of god tour they blew the power 3 times and called it a night

you just knocked loose a memory of seeing them at the 9:30 at that time, where IIRC the power blew at least once.

ATTN: Herr Raggett!

I seem to remember you contributing to the thread that presently is dominating ILx: but I hope you don't mind me asking you, as the allmusic scribe re: the following act…

If I want to get one Swans album only— and here I believe that this means meanest, heaviest, berserk with bloodlust, etc, although you may not find that to be the case— which should it be?

scanned threads for an obvious recommendation as such, couldn't locate one, know redundant verbiage herein is not yr favorite…

thanks!

i took this shot with one of those olde-tyme film cameras.

https://scontent-b-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/t1.0-9/10174786_10152989869072137_4991361121037997380_n.jpg

slightly different view.

https://scontent-b-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/t1.0-9/1979720_10152989872817137_1844411752821021782_n.jpg

and my art shot.

https://scontent-a-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/t1.0-9/1920630_10152989874767137_4682779992592093522_n.jpg

Didn't even notice Veronica's post yesterday, sorry about that!

Uh, meanest and heaviest? Hm. I mean the earliest stuff is the most 'punishing' per se but the current era is transcendently pulverizing, so.

well I wanna start with something from the era in which they initially made their mark…like Filth?

oddly, I picked up To Mega Therion the other day, and later saw that you are AMG's Celtic Frost scholar as well…

If you aren't specifically asking Ned, I'd strongly suggest the Cop/Young God/Greed/Holy Money collection. Filth is great but I don't think any other Swans studio album or collection of albums beats C/TH/G/HM for sheer prolonged brutality.
Children Of God/World Of Skin is more accessible if you're worried about that but I remember finding C/TH/G/HM surprisingly easy, because it seemed like it might have been difficult.

Consider this another vote for Cop/Young God/Greed/Holy Money, three albums and a couple of 12" singles jammed onto a two-CD set. If you like that, pick up the live album Public Castration Is A Good Idea from the same era. The songs get almost twice as long sometimes; play it loud enough to make your neighbors cry.