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WRBB leaving meaning. Review
http://www.wrbbradio.org/2019/11/01/the-new-swans-album-is-an-enlightening-experience/ Swans have been at the forefront of experimental music for a long time, largely due to the ability of Michael Gira,  founder and lone continuous member, to effortlessly evolve the band’s sound. What began as a revolutionary-yet-incoherent wall of monotonous sludge on Swans’ 1983 debut Filth soon developed into melodious, folk-inspired gothic rock with their 1991 release White Light from the Mouth of Infinity. This initial evolution would see its end with a turn to atmospheric post-rock in 1996’s Soundtracks for the Blind. After the release of the acclaimed live album, Swans are Dead, Swans went... Read more...
Exclaim leaving meaning. Review
http://exclaim.ca/music/article/swans-leaving_meaning By Max Morin Published Oct 30, 2019 7/10 There's only one rule when it comes to Swans — don't be conventional. The World's Strangest Band has existed on the outer fringes of the music scene for almost 40 years now, held together by the singular vision of Michael Gira and his revolving cult of like-minded maniacs. The Glowing Man was meant to be a final send-off, and its followup, Leaving Meaning, does feel like something of an epilogue for a bizarre career. In true Swans fashion, Leaving Meaning breaks all the rules, this time by going softer then... Read more...
X-Press Mag leaving meaning. Review
http://xpressmag.com.au/swans-leaving-meaning-gets-8-5-10/ Swansleaving meaning.Young God/Mute/Inertia 8.5/10 leaving meaning. is the album for end times we deserve in 2019. At a juncture where humanity is facing the realistic threat of extinction due to our own apathy around climate change, Swans’ 15th studio album foresees the human condition dissipating from history in an ethereal, beautiful and occasionally brutal swan song. With a largely new ensemble of musicians surrounding mainstay Michael Gira, the post-rock band turns away from the loud catharsis marked by their classic albums this decade The Seer and To Be Kind. This new sound employs... Read more...
Pitchfork leaving meaning. Review
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/swans-leaving-meaning/ Michael Gira reshuffles his famous band’s lineup, inviting collaborators like the Necks and Ben Frost for a record that emphasizes elegiac beauty over raging catharsis.  In 2017, Michael Gira dissolved Swans, putting an end to its most stable configuration in 35 years of the post-punk brutalists’ on-again, off-again existence. It wasn’t the first time that Gira had started over. He first did it in 1997, after a 15-year stretch of constant evolution in which Swans grew from atonal bloodlust worshippers (Filth) to blissed-out neo-folkies (The Burning World) to self-flagellating... Read more...
Treble Zine leaving meaning. Review
https://www.treblezine.com/reviews/swans-leaving-meaning-review/ Swans : Leaving Meaning. Label: Young God Released: 2019 by Wil Lewellyn My favorite version of Swans is the version that existed from 1987 to 1996 with Jarboe. It was hypnotic and dark, heavier than the Cure or Joy Divison. But when bandleader Michael Gira reformed Swans after a 14-year hiatus, I was happy to get whatever I was given. They had not really picked up where they left off, as much I tried to convince myself, which was most apparent by the time we got to To Be Kind. They began... Read more...
Smells Like Infinite Sadness leaving meaning. Review
https://smellslikeinfinitesadness.com/swans-leaving-meaning-review/ Swans ‘Leaving Meaning’ Review Swans ‘Leaving Meaning’ Review: Michael Gira sheds one musical skin for another on an album full of equal parts doom and hope. Swans are not your typical group. Where most bands start off with youthful verve (1982 to be exact) only to wane with age, Michael Gira’s post-punk outfit has only grown stronger. And longer–with most releases stretching over two discs. Their most acclaimed and accomplished run began with 2012’s The Seer, followed by 2014’s To Be Kind and 2016’s The Glowing Man, a harrowing and formidable triptych of... Read more...
The Line of Best Fit leaving meaning. review
https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/reviews/albums/swans-leaving-meaning-album-review Swans’ Leaving Meaning is a customarily monolithic work of experimental rock By Evan Lilly / 31 OCTOBER 2019, 17:01 GMT The music of Swans was always meant for bigger things. Yet even during periods of activity and hiatus, their reputation remained one that was absolute. Imbued with cult-worthy status and cryptic vision, their take on experimental rock had the ability to shift the heavens while shuttering your core. Their fifteenth LP, Leaving Meaning, proves no different – while its bulk envisions similar methods from their yesteryear, their new outing is based primarily around unhurried structure and... Read more...
FREQ leaving meaning. review
 http://freq.org.uk/reviews/swans-leaving-meaning/ Michael Gira has never shied away from the bareness of the bulb’s inspection – his narrative always gnaws at the fragmented prism of the self, right from the sweaty simplicity of their beginnings to the sophisticated diatribes of the later years, even including the physical force of Swans‘ recent rebirth. I’ve loved that diaristic calling, the dirgy dramatics of music behind his words apple-coring you with an air-stealing incessance. Leaving Meaning, Swans’ fifteenth album, continues the journey with a flux of guest musicians, and it’s a bold, big-sounding panorama where birth/death/love and... Read more...
Quays News REVIEW: Transformer Festival at Victoria Warehouse
REVIEW: Transformer Festival at Victoria Warehouse BY JAMES TICHBORNE ON MAY 29, 2017 THE FIRST Transformer event featured some incredible bands. While there were quite a few across the two stages, Quays was lucky enough to be able to catch four of the sets from the evening. To begin the night are This Is Not This Heat; a reformation of This Heat renamed as tribute to a fallen member. What a set to begin the night with. The amount of people playing on stage nearly reaches double figures and every single one... Read more...
The Wee Review Òran Mór review
  Swans at Òran Mór        DAFYDD JENKINS | 22 MAY 2017 An epic and difficult swan song for legendary noise rock ensemble. What the writer John Doran once said of The Fall might easily be said of Swans: though the group is perennially lead by its own king of misery Michael Gira  (and it can be said that much of any musical project spearheaded by him is at least ‘Swans-related’, much as Mark E. Smith once claimed “If it’s me and yer granny on bongos, it’s The Fall”) – Gira isn’t necessarily coterminous with Swans. Like the shamanic leader... Read more...

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