PRESS
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Spotlight Report leaving meaning. Review
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https://spotlightreport.net/music/swans-leaving-meaning-review Swans ‘Leaving Meaning’ Review By Ladyfingers The announcement of a new Swans album always raises the question: “What’s Michael Gira up to this time?” Even if you’re able to hear the acoustic sketches of the songs he provides on his limited edition fundraising albums, it’s unlikely you’ll have any idea what the finished product will sound like. Leaving Meaning, Swans’ fifteenth album (not including their innumerable EPs, live albums, fundraisers, revised releases and the entire Angels of Light catalogue) is a surprisingly quiet evolution of the drones of The Glowing Man, and a return to an earlier lushness we haven’t heard from Gira in a while. The lushness in question derives from the massive supporting cast of musicians assembled for the project, including The Necks, a host of former Swans members and their companions from their other bands as well as people Gira summoned like Anna and Maria von Hausswolff, Ben Frost, Baby Dee and more besides. Where the preceding trilogy of double albums The Seer, To Be Kind and The Glowing Man ratcheted up tension expertly with the promise that the band was about to explode into noise, Leaving Meaning employs a quieter sort of menace. The droning song structures of those albums remains, but......
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Tinnitist leaving meaning. Review
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https://tinnitist.com/2019/10/26/swans-leaving-meaning/ Swans | Leaving Meaning Michael Gira and his super-sized crew gaze into the abyss once more. By Darryl Sterdan WHO ARE THEY? Singer-guitarist, founder, frontman, chief songwriter, sole permanent member and mostly benevolent dictator Michael Gira — along with the latest super-sized incarnation of his ever-changing experimental ensemble from New York City. WHAT IS THIS? Swans’ 15th studio offering and fifth release since reuniting in 2010 following a 13-year hiatus, the two-disc Leaving Meaning continues Gira and co.’s sonic and stylistic evolution — while retaining the essential darkness and danger that have always been the hallmarks and trademarks of their subversive sound. WHAT DOES IT SOUND LIKE? Staring into the bottomless abyss. Or perhaps drowning in quicksand. Anchored by hypnotic circular grooves, fashioned and fuelled by droning soundscapes and topped with Gira’s doom-laced lyrics, stark chants and relentlessly intense delivery, these post-rock monuments reach up from the depths, grab you by the throat and slowly but surely pull you down into their beautifully bleak netherworld. Consider yourself warned. WHAT SHOULD IT BE TITLED? No title could possibly match the blackness of Gira’s worldview. HOW SHOULD I LISTEN TO IT? While curled up in the fetal position in the closet at midnight after a traumatic personal loss of......
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Disposable Underground leaving meaning. Review
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https://disposableunderground.com/swans-are-back-with-new-album-leaving-meaning-review/ Swans are back with new album “Leaving Meaning”: review Posted on November 7, 2019 by Editor Michael Gira is back in town with a new Swans record. What’s different this time is Gira has a new cast of characters playing on the record, along with a few old-school Swans and Angels Of Light veterans that he brought back in after a long absence. Gira kindly detailed the list of musicians on and the mission of Leaving Meaning on the Young God Records website (where you can also order the record, but more on that below). D.U. is partial to the tracks with more of an edge, which describes much of the record, like “The Hanging Man,” “Amnesia,” “Sunfucker,” “Cathedrals Of Heaven,” and “Some New Things.” Tracks that sounds out of place on this record are “It’s Coming It’s Real” and “What Is This,” which have sort of a pop-from-yesteryear feel. Still, besides that, current (as opposed to early) Swans fans should appreciate the expansive, delicate soundscapes, creepiness, and Gira’s twist on music in general found on Leaving Meaning. He has a way of writing with a structure that, while “repeats” from the last few records might not be the right way to say it, will be familiar. Lyrically,......
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No Rip Cord leaving meaning. Review
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https://www.noripcord.com/reviews/music/swans/leaving-meaning Swans have had one of the most fascinating career arcs of any band in recent musical history. When I began mentally drafting out this review, I was struggling to think of contemporary artists in a position similar to frontman Michael Gira and his Company’s current state of affairs—I couldn’t come up with any substantial comparisons. Because at this point in time, they’ve almost seamlessly shape-shifted: from capital-B Brutal no-wave/noise rock in the early 1980s (Filth, Cop); to gothic psychedelia and neofolk around the turn of the ‘90s (White Light from the Mouth of Infinity, Love of Life); to hypnotic experimental rock and post-rock before the new millennium (The Great Annihilator, Soundtracks for the Blind). Fast-forwarded thirteen years after their dissolution in 1997 and freshly reformed with new members serving Gira’s vision, Swans fearlessly and peerlessly picked up from where they left off in 2010, building sonic skyscrapers of challenging, cinematic, breathtaking, boundless, bleak, blood-pumping, heartfelt, and undeniably demanding, but eternally rewarding, music. This resurgence for the band, which launched with the release of My Father Will Guide Me up a Rope to the Sky, has paid dividends, both in terms of their artistic legacy and their success as a group, resulting in some......
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WUOG leaving meaning. Review
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http:// wuog.org/index.php/2019/11/05/featured-album-review-swans-leaving-meaning/ FEATURED ALBUM REVIEW: SWANS – LEAVING MEANING NOVEMBER 5, 2019 Spearheaded solely by frontman and cult-like leader Michael Gira, Swans have returned to destroy conventions and reinvent their sound once more. The industrial/experimental rock collective first emerged from the New York no wave scene in the early 80’s, and have since accounted for some of the most overtly brutal, horrifically intense, and cacophonous compositions in “rock” music throughout the past 4 decades. In true Swans fashion, Leaving Meaning breaks all the rules, and solidifies that the words “Michael Gira” and “boring” will never be used in the same sentence. Leaving Meaning marks a new chapter for Swans. Exiting a decade that brought a behemoth trilogy of albums, this newest project, which marks the groups fifteenth studio album, feels like an epilogue of sorts. Far more placid than the free-fall into chaos of The Seer or To Be Kind (two essential Swans listens), this 93 minute double LP is based primarily around unhurried structure and beautiful builds. This album is a marriage of sorts between the familiar, cavernous Swans sound and Gira’s acoustic folk group “Angels of Light”, and it creates a sound of atmospheric unease where percussions are shuffling in the background and guitars are......