PRESS

August 10, 2016

Swans - The Glowing Man Since their resurrection in 2010, each new Swans album has arrived garnered with ever more heft and gravitas. Michael Gira and this current incarnation of his soul-scouring operation have coordinated a tightly focused schedule of recording and touring which now seems to have reached its peak and finale with this almighty piece of work. The fourth “official” album since that surprise renewal of the Swans name and the third in a row comprising a mammoth two-hour running time to drag you head first through varying degrees... Read more...

Vulture Hound Glowing Man Review

August 10, 2016

Swans – The Glowing Man (Album Review) By Toby Fountain Swans are one of the last great vanguards of rock music. With vast swathes of the guitar music landscape surrendering to revivalism and outright derivitism, Swans and their new album, The Glowing Man, are a nostalgic reminder of rock’s bolder and more exciting past. We are told by bandleader Michael Gira that this is the final chapter of the bands current incarnation which emerged in 2010 with My Father Will Guide Me up a Rope to the Sky. The Glowing Man is... Read more...

Nakid Magazine NY Concert Review

August 10, 2016

SWANS: ‘THE AGONY OF MICHAEL GIRA’ LIVE IN NYC Text + photography by: A.F. CORTES Every Swans show seems like a masochistic ordeal of sonic survival. Michael Gira and company are on a mission to annihilate the audiences’ ears with a constant repetition of monotonous riffs at the decibels of a volcano’s explosion. But, as in any dysfunctional relationship, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In this iteration the band feels heavier in layered melodies and lighter in percussion. The first noticeable element was the absence of the... Read more...

dmndr Interview

August 10, 2016

SWANS INTERVIEW: PROBING MICHAEL GIRA’S BRAIN BEFORE SOLD OUT SHOWS IN NYSOPHIE LUO DAILY DMND INTERVIEWSMichael Gira speaks slowly, thoughtfully, pausing often to consider his words before moving on to the next phrase. One gets the sense that he has much to consider these days. Gira’s band, Swans, has built its reputation slowly but steadily over the past 35 years, from being a relentless rule-breaker emerging from the New York no wave scene of the 1980s to a venerated art-rock group now writing its own end despite critical acclaim and... Read more...

Pelican Magazine Glowing Man Review

August 10, 2016

REVIEW: SWANS – THE GLOWING MAN (YOUNG GOD) 9 out of 10It’s here, this is it, the grand finale, the last hurrah for Michael Gira and the gang, the swansong of it all (pun intended), and it couldn’t possibly get better than this. Swans have had a pretty eventful career over the years in which Gira was the only consistent member, although Norman Westberg was present for all except one. Beginning in the early 80s producing snarling, mechanical no-wave with albums like Public Castration is a Good Idea (yes that... Read more...

NY Daily News concert review

August 3, 2016

Swans slays at final Music Hall of Williamsburg show with its current commanding lineupBy Amy RoweSwans graced a sold-out audience at Music Hall of Williamsburg Saturday during the final tour with its current bevy of musicians, led by the always entrancing creator and frontman Michael Gira. The New York outfit’s performance, in support of “The Glowing Man” released in June, reached insane levels of volume that have come to be expected at the noise rock group’s live shows since its formation in the 1980s. With earplugs a near necessity, the... Read more...

Pop Matters Feature

August 3, 2016

Michael Gira Talks Swans' Creative Processby Jedd Beaudoin The 14 albums Michael Gira has made with Swans since 1982 provide glimpses of a seeker, an artist adding and subtracting elements to and from a larger vision that comes in brilliant flashes of light, then emerges later as something almost wholly unexpected. The music heard on The Glowing Man, the latest Swans LP, serves as a fine example of this intensity. The tracks that open the record, “Cloud of Forgetting” and “Cloud of Unknowing”, form a tight, 37-minute bond with the listener.... Read more...

MONDO SONORO Cover Feature

July 27, 2016