PRESS

UNCUT: White Light. . . / Love of Life review

January 26, 2016

August 6, 2015

Better Than: Standing in front of a sputtering jet engine. On Friday night at Warsaw (261 Driggs Avenue) in Greenpoint, Swans performed to a sold-out crowd of masochists, who seemed to welcome the punishing drone as though it were candy. Many in the crowd wisely wore earplugs. The sheer volume of Swans easily overpowered anyone who was silly enough to forget their pair at home. Speaking in purely referential terms, only My Bloody Valentine is louder. But while My Bloody Valentine's legendary 20-minute dissonant noise-pummeling takes place in the middle... Read more...

Los Angeles Times Live Review

August 6, 2015

Like the opening moment of a meditation session, the rock band Swans commenced the first of two sold-out nights at the Roxy in West Hollywood with the ringing of a gong. The gesture, driven with delicate mallet bumps by multi-instrumentalist Thor Harris, was a signal, a directive to the packed club on Wednesday: You are here. Turn off those noisy machines inside your skulls and in your pockets and focus on the Now. Over the next few minutes, the tone gained heft, a kind of thickness, and one by one... Read more...

Roundhouse, London – live review (Louder Than War)

August 6, 2015

Swans | Okkyung Lee | Jas Shaw Roundhouse, London 21st May 2015 Michael Gira and his gang of sonic cohorts visited London’s Roundhouse venue for their biggest ever UK headline gig. Simon Tucker stepped into the breach for Louder Than War. Entering the circular space that is the Roundhouse you get an instant sense of history seeping through the air. The ghosts of a million artists swirl around, and tonight a conduit to the other plane will invoke, rile, and aggravate them. That conductor of spirits is Michael Gira who, with... Read more...

YOUNG GOD: 10 EARLY SWANS RECORDS YOU NEED TO HEAR (The Vinyl Factory)

August 6, 2015

After blowing us away with 10 slept-on Seattle era grunge records, Nick Soulsby returns with an armful of essential Swans records from their pre-breakup chapter. Words: Nick Soulsby http://www.thevinylfactory.com/vinyl-factory-releases/young-god-10-early-swans-records-you-need-to-hear/ Hauled from the grave in 2010, Michael Gira’s resurrected Swans have garnered vast critical and popular respect. Amid a swarm of reformations cashing in nostalgia checks, the band stands near alone with a recent run of albums living up to every inch of their daunting reputation. It wasn’t always the way. Laid to rest in 1998 with the emphatic Swans Are Dead,... Read more...

Swans’ Michael Gira: Growing into something new (Whopperjaw)

July 30, 2015

Swans‘ frontman Michael Gira originally thought he would be a visual artist. Since childhood, he regularly created illustrations and “devoured books on art.” He even went to art school. It was there that he was introduced to punk rock, which he has said “seemed more relevant and urgent and necessary than forging some kind of art career, which was beginning to look like a parallel career to being a lawyer or accountant.” Initially, he started what he has called a “pretty bad punk rock band” called the Little Cripples that... Read more...

Le National, Montreal QC (Exclaim)

July 30, 2015

By Natalie Zina Walschots Published Feb 20, 2015 How the fuck do you talk about Swans? Seriously, someone tell me. I could barely talk at all for a good two hours after the show ended, and not just because, even with very good earplugs, my head was ringing and my hearing was cottony and distant. No. It wasn't that my ears were ringing, though they were. It was that my body was ringing. No other band are capable of generating a full-contact, visceral and aural live experience the... Read more...