Narc. Magazine Online
Reliably informed
Elodie A. Roy discovers an oppressive and haunting slowness on Swans’ new album
Mute/Young God Records
Release date: 23.06.23
It is Swans’ sixteenth studio album, and their twelfth release since Michael Gira reinvented the band in 2010. Many people have left yet much has remained. There is the same sense of oppression, the same intolerably beautiful slowness haunting every song. Swans’ music is like a storm which will never break. The sky keeps darkening.
The album was recorded at Candy Bomber in Berlin, a studio packed with vintage equipment located on the site of the now disassembled Tempelhof Airport, and one can almost hear the weight of history – its vertiginous pull. Gira’s delivery is characteristically solemn; his lyrics are full of bizarre oracles and presentiments. I’m reminded of the morbid lyricism of Death in June and Current 93. I’m reminded of something that can never come to pass.
