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Smells Like Infinite Sadness Glowing Man Review
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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......
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Freq Glowing Man REview
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Swans – The Glowing Manhttp://freq.org.uk/reviews/swans-the-glowing-man/Sister track “The Cloud Of Unknowing” (named after a fourteenth century Christian text) pretty much cements Swans’ well-deserved reputation as the kaiju of rock (well, OK, that’s actually my definition, but it seems to match everyone else’, so I don’t think “reputation”’s too much of a stretch); it’s the sound of a beautiful and terrible creature being born and laying waste to your cities, to the point where you don’t know whether to call in the army or just fall on your knees and worship the bastard. “The World Looks Red/The World Looks Black” is all-encompassing mantic drone with intricate piano harmonies, right up until the point it goes as close to disco as Swans have ever been, climaxing with something that wouldn’t be entirely out of place on Eno and Byrne‘s legendary My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, if that album had been recorded on a spaceship crashing to Earth. Which is a pretty apposite image for the album as a whole, really — it’s the sound of Swans coming back to Earth to claim it for themselves after their cosmic travels of the last six years. Alternatively, it’s the sound of your brain......
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Stack Glowing Man Review
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Swans - The Glowing Manby Chris Murryhttp://stack.net.au/music/reviews/the-glowing-man-swans If Francis Bacon needed inspiration to enter even darker territory when putting oil to canvas, he’d have Swans at ear-bleeding levels. This isn’t an album, it’s a séance, as you’ll no doubt experience in all 25 minutes of Cloud of Unknowing. The wolves of doom are breathing at your hind and you're engulfed in an erotically moreish, cinematic and intoxicating tunnel of desire. Then there’s the broken cabaret that is The World Looks Red/The World Looks Black, a leaning tower of blackened glass descending upon the cranium. Folks, let’s be honest: every now and then you desire a definitive soundtrack to the end of days, focusing on your own. Look no further. It’ll challenge your projected sanity and envelop your soul, as all good music should. It’s not for squares, nor the faint of heart – it’s instead genetically designed for warriors atop skeletal steeds on a mission to bizarrely divulge secrets and fears. F-cking incredible. Run, don’t walk, to the nearest store and purchase immediately as a matter of urgency most vital. (Mute/Create/Control) ...
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The Big Take Over Glowing Man Review
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Swans - The Glowing Man (Young God) by Chuck Foster http://bigtakeover.com/recordings/swans-the-glowing-man-young-godIn 2010, Michael Gira resurrected Swans after fourteen years of inactivity with My Father Will Guide Me up a Rope to the Sky, which blended the gospel overtones of 1987’s Children of God with his more recent work in Angels of Light. The Seerfollowed two years later, further bridging the gap between the two artistic statements while taking a noticeably harder edge that drew more from Swans, especially their White Light from the Mouth of Infinity/Love of Life period in the early ’90s. 2014’s To Be Kind further lessened traces of Angels of Light for a darker, heavier sound that could be considered the sum of Swans from origin to present. Now, Gira takes it even further, delivering Swans’ most monolithic statement to date. Clocking in at just under two hours with eight songs, The Glowing Man shines with intensity while pushing drone and minimalism to their extremes. “Cloud of Forgetting” opens with the now-patented Swans quiet boom, building to an agonized, lumbering, furious passion recalling Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham. The following “Cloud of Unknowing” rises from atmospheric expanse to glaring intensity and back, ebbing and flowing like some......
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Sound Lab Glowing Man Review
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The Glowing ManSwans By Kevin Ortonhttp://soundblab.com/reviews/albums/9606-swans-the-glowing-man Once again Michael Gira and this latest incarnation of Swans have spawned a work of terrifying beauty with The Glowing Man. “Surrender” Gira bellows on the opening track, ‘Cloud of Forgetting’. Which is good advice when it comes to this stirring and intense album. After the ‘Cloud of Forgetting’ draws to a moody close with Gira growling, “children run” we’re soon caught up in the ‘Cloud of Unknowing’. Beginning with some unsettling atmospherics, ‘Unknowing’ is a restless, sometimes harrowing journey which at times, breaks into a thunderous gallop and at other times, pulls back hard on the rains of this runaway Nightmare of a song. There’s a lot going on here and its never boring but clocking in at over 25 minutes, the listener is left slack jawed with hair standing on end. And its only the second track.‘The World Looks Red/The World Looks Black’ is a much more concise offering. A beguiling track that sprints forth from the gate, never letting up, ending up in a trance like, tribal groove with Gira chanting “Follow the sleeping man.” All going to show, no one and I mean no one makes music quite like Michael Gira.......