PRESS
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The Skinny Swans @ Òran Mór, Glasgow, 18 May
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Swans @ Òran Mór, Glasgow, 18 May ★★★★★ Live Review by Lewis Wade Swans are known for making very lengthy, very loud music. They also have a fierce live reputation as when this music is transferred to the live setting it makes for a remarkably intense experience. Performing for over two hours, with no breaks, and only playing five songs is not your standard rock concert. 'Intense' is the operative word at a Swans show. They open with an unreleased song, The Knot, which builds very slowly (even by Swans standards) to a pummelling crescendo about 20-30 minutes in, demonstrating the 'noise' aspect of their style. From there they move through Screen Shot and the epic Cloud of Unknowing. Sandwiched between two almost-40 minute monoliths, Screen Shot comes across as an interlude – a snappy, punk cut – despite it running to almost ten minutes itself. Michael Gira is an imposing presence at every turn; even when thanking the crowd between songs he is taciturn and solemn, though he seems to greatly appreciate the support. During songs, he is wholly engrossed in the music, delivering deep, repetitive phrases like a Gregorian monk and conducting the band with his wild gesticulations.......
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The Seventh Hex Interview
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Swans Interview 2nd May 2017 Following the unprecedented critical and commercial success of Swans’ double-album masterworks ‘The Seer’ and ‘To Be Kind’, Michael Gira announced that the existing iteration of the band would only produce one more album and tour. ‘The Glowing Man’, as with its predecessors, is an expansive two-hour epic containing lengthy compositions that the band developed during their momentous tours. Throughout the latest release, Gira is less a songwriter than a summoner, channelling unspeakable amounts of energy into ritualistic spectacles. Many of the songs start out with tension-building drones, often utilising lots of percussion before ebbing and flowing with intense bursts, and eventually reaching ecstatic, trance-inducing states. There’s no way this type of boundless energy can simply be retired or silenced, though, so the album serves as another exciting portal into the unknown… The Seventh Hex talks to the legendary Michael Gira about being self-critical, sequencing and Buddhism… TSH: Since the inception of Swans to now, how rewarding is it for you to consistently and continually develop little worlds and atmospheres with your compositions and have listeners connect on a personal level? Michael: Without sounding too sentimental, that’s the greatest reward. When I talk to audience members after the......
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Swans Perform At The Roundhouse on Getty Images
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http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/event/swans-perform-at-the-roundhouse-700055453#michael-gira-of-swans-performs-at-the-roundhouse-on-may-27-2017-in-picture-id689138258...
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Smells Like Infinite Sadness Great Annihilator review
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Swans ‘The Great Annihilator'(Remastered Edition) Review by SLIS on APRIL 21, 2017 Swans: ‘The Great Annihilator’ (Deluxe Edition) Review: underrated 1995 album gets deluxe remastered double-vinyl reissue. ★★★★★ To say NYC noise rock legends SWANS have had a unique career trajectory is an understatement. Whereas most bands that formed in the 80s subsist by playing their back catalogue on the nostalgia circuit, Swans have become more popular than ever. Indeed their album triptych of 2012’s The Seer, 2014’s To Be Kind and last year’s The Glowing Man has been some of the most well received work of their career. As a result many of Swan’s recent fan base aren’t well acquainted with their earlier discography. This makes it as a good a time as any to expose them to The Great Annihilator, their morbidly compelling 1995 release that saw frontman/mastermind Michael Gira reinvigorate the band’s sound by allowing for more nuance and fragility into their brutal and unforgiving compositions. Gira has never been particularly satisfied about The Great Annihilator sound mix however, but thanks to former drummer Bill Rieflin’s discovery of the album’s original DAT recordings, the band are releasing The Great Annihilator (Remastered Edition) (due May 5th on Young God Records in MP3, double vinyl and double cd formats). The album reissue sounds richer and more evocative than ever before–showcasing all the unique intricacies that make......
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The Line of Best Fit Great Annihilator review
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Swans’ The Great Annihilator chews us up and swallows us whole By Luke Cartledge / 21 APRIL 2017, 17:32 BST Like many of the group’s younger fans, my first exposure to Swans arrived with the release of 2012’s The Seer. Although it wasn’t the first post-reformation Swans record, it’s a work of such power and import that, for me at least, it burned a searing wound into its creators’ immediate past and future. Semi-ignorant though I was of the group’s history, and indeed of its contemporary context, to be introduced to Swans by such an album as that temporarily supressed my usual obsessive desire to research and second-guess the new music over which I am constantly poring. It was more than enough to simply bask in The Seer for a while, to understand it as a singularity rather than a mere chapter. Yet, over time and via more recent Swansreleases (all, for my money at least, weighty significance), I’ve familiarised myself with the group whose career is so perfectly encapsulated by The Seer.In a body of work whose highlights are so frequent, it’s impossible to pick a favourite; surely, though, The Great Annihilator must be in with a decent shout. As maligned as it once was in some quarters for its general shift away from the......