Album Review: Swans - leaving meaning.
To describe the dramatically successful, decade-spanning career of Swans, a genre-bending rock band masterminded by absurdist Michael Gira, is not a simple endeavour, given that they have produced more masterpieces than most bands have albums in general. A legendary run of projects in the ’80s and ’90s that dabbled in everything from noise-rock to post-punk to post-rock culminated in 1996’s Soundtracks for the Blind, a two-and-a-half-hour odyssey into the darkest corners of the human psyche that has yet to be matched by any record in terms of scope and abnormality. A resurgence in this decade after fifteen years of silence quickly produced a trio of two-hour opuses (2012’s The Seer, 2014’s To Be Kind, and 2016’s The Glowing Man) which proved that, thirty years after their debut, Swans are far from running out of material or talent.
So one cannot just give a brief synopsis of the band’s career thus far; what is important to know is that Michael Gira has cultivated a reputation for striking out into bold new territory with every single release, and having almost all of his experiments going over with unbelievable success. But as Gira seemed to view The Glowing Man as a conclusion for the most recent incarnation of Swans, the question remained: what was to come next, if anything? As it turned out, the wait for the next Swans album was only slightly longer than the two years in between each of their most recent projects, and though the group’s roster has been slightly shaken up this time around, leaving meaning. is, for all intents and purposes, a product of the same group that fans have endlessly hailed. It’s no surprise, then, that their newest record is largely more of the same sound that garnered them so much praise in the past ten years, albeit on a slightly smaller scale. But what leaving meaning. loses in scope it gains in nostalgia, as Gira has seen fit to reach into the Swans back catalogue for sonic inspiration, and the resulting blend of gothic country, post-rock, and countless other styles is a more than worthy entry in the group’s discography.
As much as Gira is pulling from every era of Swans on his newest work, arguably the strongest reference point is actually How I Loved You, the 2001 album from his side project The Angels of Light. That record took the gothic and folk elements introduced to the Swans canon on 1991’s White Light from the Mouth of Infinity and smoothed them out into an collection of downright pleasant ballads that constitute the closest Gira’s ever gotten to accessible music. But leaving meaning. stretches its influences into something both more and less substantial, a culmination of genre that blends those sounds with the droning post-rock of The Glowing Man to create a powerful, melodic experience that nevertheless tests the listener’s patience too often to be ignored. For a band that has routinely made 30-minute tracks that grab one’s attention by the throat and hold it captive for over a half hour without ever letting up, that sitting through ten minutes of The Hanging Man or twelve minutes of The Nub can often feel like a chore is quite disappointing.
Still, the band’s newest venture finds plenty of room for both innovation on past experiments and forays into exciting new territory. Amnesia will likely make any careful listeners do a double take, as it borrows its title and lyrics from an obscure cut off of the group’s 1992 record Love of Life (another key point of reference for their newest project’s sonic palette). What was once an animated, post-punk thrash has been redone as a delicate lament replete with plucked guitar and vibrant string swells, with Gira’s words trading their original rebellious fury for a detached, poetic tone more resigned than righteous: “And this city’s a crowded room/The earth is a closing tomb”. When he croons out “The President’s mouth is a whore/When there’s murder, the audience roars” just as he did twenty-five years ago, the realization that his words are no less relevant now than they were back then is at once infuriating and depressing. Even more of a throwback, however, is the abnormally groovy Some New Things; between its fuzzy, distorted production, chanted background vocals, and Gira’s cold-blooded twang, the song would fit right at home on any of the band’s ’90s records, though it may even surpass that material in terms of fiendish exuberance.
As enjoyable as it is for longtime Swans fans to revel in the group’s history, the most emphatic highlights on leaving meaning. sound unlike anything the band has attempted before. The ten-minute Sunfucker opens on an ominous drone enveloping ritualistic chanting; the sun has always been one of Gira’s favourite metaphors, and the sacred, omniscient overtones of the thirty-minute tour de force Bring The Sun/Toussaint L’Ouverture off of To Be Kind return in full force: “Give up to Sunfucker/The naked, the crawling/They become us while burning”. The energy builds into a powerful climax of synths and shouted vocals, then slowly fades away until Gira suddenly reenters and the track transforms into a driving frenzy of guitar and drums culminating in the ultimate primal cessation: “One thought, one mind/Sunfucker eats the blind”. Less unhinged but even more astounding is the gothic dirge It’s Coming It’s Real; the delicate blend of piano, soft percussion, and choir intonation slowly grows with perfect cadence into a sonic mass of shrill guitar tones and layered singing that hits with an indescribable intensity. Similar sound palettes comprise Cathedrals of Heaven and the title track, trading out the tempered buildup for a short crescendo of electronic noise on the former and more complex melodic lines on the latter; though nearly all of Swans’ lengthier odysseys offer some value, the lack of diverse, evolving compositions will no doubt irritate many fans of their recent work.
While it cannot quite shake the hindrance of being less consistent than many of the group’s most beloved records, leaving meaning. finds its value in striking a perfect balance between nostalgic throwbacks to earlier Swans eras and fresh, innovative ideas. Despite finding unimaginable success in their recent resurgence, the band refuses to ever become complacent, and their relentless dissatisfaction with the present continues to pay off in the staggering creativity Michael Gira and company display on every new project. That their newest effort is so indebted to their past only adds to its charm; few groups could boast a history so lauded and diverse, so that Swans could find so much value in recreating older material is far from surprising. No one could ever say that they make the same record twice, and even if it exists a tier below its trio of predecessors, leaving meaning. is more than deserving of its place in the Swans lineage.
8.5/10
Favorite Tracks: Amnesia, Sunfucker, It's Coming It's Real