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Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
Y Zine | Derick Varn
dark metaphysical landscapes
This double compact disc is a whole world of ethereal lovers and drags you through dark metaphysical landscapes. Jarboe and Michael Gira have released their LAST album as The Swans."Soundtracks" is over two hours of music that is sometimes dark, sometimes droning, and always unpredictable.
Layers and layers of samples and music are born in this album. "Soundtracks" is musically textured and extremely original. Michael Gira manages industrial sampling without the choppy "techno" or machine effects. Drones, moans, answering machines, keyboards, pan flutes, and thousands of other sounds. Michael's lulling deep voice shines on the album, "Johnny Cash" like vocals completely contrast Jarboe's feminine and smoothing voice.
"Volcano" is an amazing song about a woman love for another woman. "Animus" and "The Sound" are both great songs about just darkness in general with killer lyrics. On the average, songs are about ten minutes long on this album, but they are worth it if you have the attention span.
The album comes in a cool "brown bag" digipak. The attitude and outlook of the album is definitely dark, but not as edged as all the pasted Swans album. It is overall a great buy for those who love gothic, ethereal, black metal, or British Celtic rock.