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Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
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Detroit Metro Times | Thom Jurek* * * * * starsWith the issue of Soundtracks For The Blind, their 15th album in as many years (along 12"s and side projects), Swans are calling it quits. There's one final tour planned and then the band enters the palace of rock and roll memory. For me, this is difficult, because on a pop scene filled with transience and trend, Swans have always been present if not always visible, ever looking forward. They are, in both ambition and excess, a true voice of resistance to an "alternative" music that consumed its own corrupted flesh in the mid-1980s. I won't spend time talking about the legion of bands they influenced—most of whom have gained in stature and economic status as a result of Swans' renegade aesthetic and unbreakable spirit—it leaves too bitter a taste in my mouth. And though I know both Gira and Jarboe are far too driven to give up working—there are books, films and duo and solo recordings planned—I will miss the persona that was so singularly Swans. As a title, "Soundtracks for the Blind" is filled with irony. Never have Swans been so focused on their particular strengths as they......
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Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
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Detroit Metro Times | Thom Jurek* * * * * starsWith the issue of Soundtracks For The Blind, their 15th album in as many years (along 12"s and side projects), Swans are calling it quits. There's one final tour planned and then the band enters the palace of rock and roll memory. For me, this is difficult, because on a pop scene filled with transience and trend, Swans have always been present if not always visible, ever looking forward. They are, in both ambition and excess, a true voice of resistance to an "alternative" music that consumed its own corrupted flesh in the mid-1980s. I won't spend time talking about the legion of bands they influenced—most of whom have gained in stature and economic status as a result of Swans' renegade aesthetic and unbreakable spirit—it leaves too bitter a taste in my mouth. And though I know both Gira and Jarboe are far too driven to give up working—there are books, films and duo and solo recordings planned—I will miss the persona that was so singularly Swans. As a title, "Soundtracks for the Blind" is filled with irony. Never have Swans been so focused on their particular strengths as they......
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Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
()
Detroit Metro Times | Thom Jurek* * * * * starsWith the issue of Soundtracks For The Blind, their 15th album in as many years (along 12"s and side projects), Swans are calling it quits. There's one final tour planned and then the band enters the palace of rock and roll memory. For me, this is difficult, because on a pop scene filled with transience and trend, Swans have always been present if not always visible, ever looking forward. They are, in both ambition and excess, a true voice of resistance to an "alternative" music that consumed its own corrupted flesh in the mid-1980s. I won't spend time talking about the legion of bands they influenced—most of whom have gained in stature and economic status as a result of Swans' renegade aesthetic and unbreakable spirit—it leaves too bitter a taste in my mouth. And though I know both Gira and Jarboe are far too driven to give up working—there are books, films and duo and solo recordings planned—I will miss the persona that was so singularly Swans. As a title, "Soundtracks for the Blind" is filled with irony. Never have Swans been so focused on their particular strengths as they......
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Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
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Melody Maker | Jonathan Selzerlike fragments from a world whose foundations are in the last stages of erosionSo this is it, the last album proper by my favourite, most fatalistic band, a band who could give rise to the most transcendent of feelings only because they'd detail their own limits with such meticulous care, a band who sensed such overwhelming destiny they were stricken by it. The first time I played a Swans record, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Listening to them now, ravaged, wretched, as terminal a document for the millenium as you'll ever encounter, they sound as though they're beyond belief, as tragic as an unrequited martyr. "Soundtracks For The Blind" is what's left now that all Swans' endeavour has burnt itself out. It's composed from shreds—tape loops, "found" samples, recorded testimonies of spiritually lost mid-Westerners—isolated moments blended together, like fragments from a world whose foundations are in the last stages of erosion. When they do become galvanised, it's not through any will of their own, so much as from a final, dying vision—but it's a glorious and redemptive vision, succumbing to an overpowering feeling of loss. Michael Gira has never sounded quite as raw, as......
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Swans | Soundtracks for the Blind | Review
()
Melody Maker | Jonathan Selzerlike fragments from a world whose foundations are in the last stages of erosionSo this is it, the last album proper by my favourite, most fatalistic band, a band who could give rise to the most transcendent of feelings only because they'd detail their own limits with such meticulous care, a band who sensed such overwhelming destiny they were stricken by it. The first time I played a Swans record, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Listening to them now, ravaged, wretched, as terminal a document for the millenium as you'll ever encounter, they sound as though they're beyond belief, as tragic as an unrequited martyr. "Soundtracks For The Blind" is what's left now that all Swans' endeavour has burnt itself out. It's composed from shreds—tape loops, "found" samples, recorded testimonies of spiritually lost mid-Westerners—isolated moments blended together, like fragments from a world whose foundations are in the last stages of erosion. When they do become galvanised, it's not through any will of their own, so much as from a final, dying vision—but it's a glorious and redemptive vision, succumbing to an overpowering feeling of loss. Michael Gira has never sounded quite as raw, as......