PRESS
-
Spin Glowing Man Review
()
Review: Swans’ Actual Swan Song Is a Cloud of Unknowing on ‘The Glowing Man’ SPIN Rating: 8 of 10Release Date: June 17, 2016Label: Young God Zoe Camp http://www.spin.com/2016/06/review-swans-the-glowing-man/ It had to end eventually. Six years after Michael Gira resurrected his pivotal drone outfit Swans in 2010, the time has come to lay them to rest. Over the past three decades, the eldritch New York-based band — led by Gira, keyboardist/vocalist Jarboe, and guitar wizard Norman Westberg — have expanded the boundaries of what we call “heavy music,” slowly morphing from a creeping no-wave outfit (on 1982’s Filth) into a muddied noise-rock group (circa 1987’s Children of God) and then, most recently, into symphonic rock villains. Following the band’s initial split in 1997, Gira turned his focus to Americana, releasing six albums with his surprisingly folksy side group, Angels of Light. Despite his funereal lyrical affinities, Gira couldn’t resist another go-round — and so, with the financial assistance of the band’s rabid fanbase, he and Westberg staged a grand return, sans Jarboe. Backed by a cadre of musicians old (guitarist Christoph Hahn, percussionist Phil Puleo) and new (scary-good drummer Thor Harris, bassist Christopher Pravdica), the group went on to fill the......
-
Pitchfork Glowing Man Review
()
Swans - The Glowing ManSwans close their current chapter on a subdued but powerful note.by Saby Reyes-Kulkarnihttp://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21994-the-glowing-man/Musical careers rarely end with clean resolutions, which makes sense given that bands usually don’t get to plan their own exits. And even when they do, farewell gestures tend to leave a lingering taste of anticlimax. The Glowing Man, the final album by the current lineup of Swans, marks an exception to this rule, much as Swans have broken pretty much all modern rock norms. From 1982 to 1997, and then again from 2010 until now, Swans leaderMichael Gira has charted a fiercely uncompromising path. Not unlike King Crimson mastermind Robert Fripp, he has re-invented Swans several times, with new iterations bearing little resemblance to previous ones. Along the way, Swans have drawn from no wave, art-rock, industrial, sludge, drone, folk, and more while flagrantly disregarding genre boundaries. Gira built Swans by subjecting audiences to unrelenting torrents of abrasion, but latter-day Swans tunes are built like spiderwebs: delicate enough to blow on, yet surprisingly durable against wind and rain, elegant but dotted with gruesome shapes in a complex, shifting geometry. Who knows what they will become next; Gira says he plans to continue under the Swans......
-
The Line of Best Fit Glowing Man Review
()
Swans take a bow on The Glowing ManBy Brian Coneyhttp://www.thelineofbestfit.com/reviews/albums/swans-the-glowing-man For all their masterfully foreboding, skull-rattling ire – not least on their last two studio albums in their current guise, the equally emphatic The Seer and To Be Kind – it’s safe to say Michael Gira’s Swans aren’t exactly widely famed for their darling expressions of affection and amour. Peer a little further behind the veil, however, and you’ll discover love – not hate nor rage nor misery – informing latter-day Swans’ orchestrated fury and seismic might. Equating the band’s diversely ecstatic output and live shows to a shared grasping for the elusive root of some higher reality binding not only his band but their art, their audience and all truths far beyond, Gira recently said: “I chose the five people with whom to work that I believed would most ably provide a sense of surprise, and even uncertainty, while simultaneously embodying the strength and confidence to ride the river of intention that flows from the heart of the sound wherever it would lead us - and what’s the intention? LOVE!” At just under two hours in length The Glowing Man is the third and final vessel in which 62-year-old Gira......
-
mxdwn Glowing Man Review
()
Swans - The Glowing ManBY DREW PITThttp://music.mxdwn.com/2016/06/17/reviews/swans-the-glowing-man/Unrelenting, Violent, Calculated, and Revelatory Blood, gore, nails, bones, and shattered teeth. This is the dark and pungent world Swans has inhabited since forming as a project of Michael Gira in 1982. Since then, they have gone on to create some of the bleakest, most trying, and ultimately most compelling music to come from the experimental scene. Beginning as members of the No Wave scene out of New York, they quickly rose to prominence as a result of their unyielding brutality and ever shifting sonic pallet. Their 2016 release The Glowing Man, reported to be the final album released under the Swans moniker, balances brutality and accessibility to create one of the most compelling albums of the year. The album wastes no time shaking hands or giving introductions, opting instead to savagely beat the listener about the head with roaring guitars and pounding drums in the dual openers “Cloud of Forgetting” and “Cloud of Unknowing.” The first track opts for a slightly calmer, yet still foreign ambient structure. Light tapping drums and ominously humming guitars are punctuated by Gira’s throaty chants in the background. The whole album feels very ritualistic, like the summoning of a forgotten Eldritch horror. By the......
-
Smells Like Infinite Sadness Glowing Man Review
()
Swans ‘The Glowing Man’ Review: Michael Gira concludes current Swans lineup with hypnotic results. ★★★★★ NYC’s noise rock icons Swans have had an impressive career trajectory this decade. For a band that started in the early 80’s, reforming in 2005 after a 15-year hiatus, they sound as hungry, raw and exploratory as ever. Following 2012’s brilliantly dark The Seer and 2014’s overwhelming opus To Be Kind, the group are now back with The Glowing Man (due June 17 on Young God Records) billed as the last album to feature its current lineup (including founding member Michael Gira, Thor Harris, Phil Puleo, Christoph Hahn, Christopher Pravdica, Bill Rieflin and Norman Westburg).And it’s a fittingly seismic sendoff, continuing the group’s exploration of sonic space and emotional weight, with several songs nearing the half-hour mark. Things kick off with Cloud of Forgetting, a haunting opener with lush piano and cascading guitars. It’s a calm before the storm, with Gira intoning with a sense of spiritual solemnity:Reaching out…I am blind. It dovetails with Clouds of Unknowing which begins with an atonal din before lurching into a strident droning riff, stark cello and tribal percussion–a distilled Venus In Furs lost in an endless hall of......