So we're pretty much in agreement this is their worst album

No, it's actually one of their best. But if you want to use music as a fashion statement, go on rants about how much better Filth, Cop, and CoG were and how they just don't have that power anymore (even though Greed was by far their best of the 80s), or then go on to say how Soundtracks is their magnum opus (even though people like you who can't accept new iterations of the band are the reason they broke up after complaints about Soundtracks).

>>72859303
I actually like the entirety of their discog, this just seems like a low point. The Glowing Man was a step up.

>>72859196
what are you talking about, their songwriting was fantastic on this album. Every track expressed a unique idea (sometimes multiple unique ideas), and personally I like the ideas they came up with. All the little touches: the laughter in Just A Little Boy, the chanting during the climax of A Little God, how the last half of Oxygen is subtly more chaotic than the first half (and the blowout section at the very end of the song where you finally catch your breath), how the ending of Screen Shot captures intense volume regardless of what volume you are listening to it at, the key (and mood) change halfway through Kirsten Supine, the exaggerated film-like finale of To Be Kind (the track that is). There are honestly so many moments in this album, I could go on naming more but you get the idea.

>>72859196
faggot
>>72859303
super duper faggot

>>72859196
fucking kill yourself

>>72859303
>(even though people like you who can't accept new iterations of the band are the reason they broke up after complaints about Soundtracks).
that's literaly not true though

>>72860382
>JARBOE BROKE UP THE BAND LIEK LE BEATLES!!!!!

>>72860414
that's also literally not true

>>72860428
Why did they break up give me a history lesson pls.

>>72860590
gira knew enough was enough

Worst album ever made

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>>72860661
>implying

>>72860661
agreed

imo

The Seer > The Glowing Man > To Be Kind > My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky

>>72860943
in quality? worst? best?

>>72860943
best to worst, although they're all good

>>72859196
The burning world is more of a shark jumper

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>>72859196
I bet you don't even believe that, you dirty shitposter
>>72859303
Holy Money is their best release in the 80's, not Greed or CoG.
>broke up after complaints about soundtracks
You're misinformed. They went into Soundtracks knowing that they would break up afterwards. Their early fans had already jumped ship, and they were being rejected on account of their persistent reputation built upon their early albums (read the interviews with Gira before writing as if you possess authority -- I've read 161 of them). The Seer and The Glowing Man are some of their strongest records to date, but To Be Kind is one of their weakest. Most of the songs are simple, weak, and unfulfilling. The result was the antithesis of Gira's intention. He could not get the songs to work in the studio. Look at this shit (>>72859805). The people that exalt this album judge music on the basis of its novelty (which they will refer to as the quality of the "songwriting") and its potential for entertainment, while the record utterly fails as an experience -- so what do you see in this? The lyrics are worthless; they're as worthless, in fact, as the instrumentation is. The songs are predictable. The Seer is bright, spacious, feminine, and absolutely submissive. The Glowing Man is an absurdly heavy and powerful album. To Be Kind has no character. People say it is characterized by love, but there's less love in To Be Kind than there is in the first disc of The Glowing Man (which contains less than the second disc does). To Be Kind is overflowing with power and volume, so any claim regarding the absence thereof incorrect and misguided. The issue with the album is that it is poorly-written, poorly-executed, disjointed mediocrity.

>>72859303
>if you want to use music as a fashion statement

jesus christ you are a cunt

cop is the best in their discog btw

>>72859303
>defending To Be Kind
>talks about music as fashion statement
To Be Kind is a Filth-tier fashion statement. It's fantano/core/

>>72860943
these are some of my favourites too

I'm not a fan of quite a few of them which are more screamy

>>72859196
Fuck no. Their worst album stretch is from Children of God to Love of Life, and all of those albums are still good

>>72862050 good taste but I disagree on your assessment of The Seer

>>72862453
The Seer Returns is the only dark song on the album. Submission to the divine or to society is the primary theme of the album. I don't think it's possible to disagree with the fact that it's spacious instrumentally. Do you contest the supposition that it's feminine?

>>72859196

Their worst? Nah. It is the worst of their post-revival records but I'd still put it above Greed, Holy Money and Burning World.

>>72862913
all three of those are better than tbk

>>72862951

I might be willing to accept Greed and Holy Money even if I personally see them more as stepping stones than outright accomplishments but Burning World is thoroughly mediocre. TBK's stronger songs trounce that record quite handily.

>>72862050
Damn, good analysis, I always felt the same about TGM. The songs slammed live but just didn't translate very well to a clean recording.

>>72862591
What do you mean by feminine exactly? I agree that The Seer and TGM were much more successful at nailing that spiritual "neo-Swans feel" but I didn't feel like any of it was feminine or masculine. I always saw the two as demonic/chaotic and holy/meditative respectively

>>72862988
I think that The Burning World is excellent almost from start to finish, and that it is one of Swans' better albums. TBK is the one that I'd call thoroughly mediocre. The only song on The Burning World that any of TBK trounces is the one the Gira didn't write.

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So we're pretty much in agreement this is his worst album to date, right?

He really jumped the shark here.

>>72863383
To start, I say that because the music itself possesses some traits that I associate with femininity: capriciousness, self-assurance, grace, frailty, etc. Beyond that, in the lyrics you will find feminine perspectives or themes.

I'll spare you from an extensive examination, but there are a few basic things to note. Let me start by saying that in the face of the divine, submission is neither feminine nor masculine, so I won't mention that. If you're looking for feminine subjects in the lyrics, there's Lunacy and Song For A Warrior -- among other things that aren't necessarily feminine, these reference the role of mothers in shaping society. Conflict between their interests and the tendencies which are naturally embedded within children are mentioned. After Lunacy is Mother Of The World -- here, the symmetric property is applied to the idea that we are reflections of the divine, and the world described in Lunacy is projected onto a filthy maternal deity. The narrative character is observing and pleading with her in that song. After this is The Seer trilogy, in which the narrative character is enlightened (divine infusion) by this lesser maternal deity and returns with a new perspective. TDBTW posits a two-figure male-and-female divine realm. It and SFAW reiterate what has happened thus far, and SFAW also contains a command, which is clarified and undertaken in Avatar.

I have a lot of stupid, unrefined ideas about the second disc. I won't subject you to them. The Seer is certainly chaotic, but there's more to it than that. The Glowing Man is a very personal affair. Everything in the second disc is explicitly related to Gira (people he knows, himself, his band), so I'm not sure if I would say that it's any more holy than The Seer. It is certainly less vague.

>>72864526
Huh, I'd definitely never thought about it that way (because I didn't really focus on the lyrics that much) but your theory makes at least some sense. I'd actually like to know what you think of the second disc, since those songs are some of my favorites but I've never felt I fully understand them.

The reason I saw TGM as a more holy album (maybe it's not the right word) is because of how meditative and cathartic the music and subject matter is, especially compared to stuff like The Seer where you generally have no clue what he could be singing about. I remember him describing the lyrics to both Clouds as "prayers", and songs like When Will I Return and Finally Peace deal with resolution of hardship. Frankie M is obviously a personal song, and The World Looks Red/Black and TGM reference Jesus and God (or some God-like force/energy) (I know he had written the lyrics to Red/Black long before but I theorize he decided to use them here as a reflection on the past and because they were relevant to this newer sound) (Specifically the "Joseph" thing which sounds like his weird personal version of divine inspiration) much more explicitly than ever before. Musically too, the reason I can't help but compare it to The Seer is because of how similar but also antonymous their sounds are. Powerful, focused, but on The Seer he sounds like a lunatic making some sort of ritual music, while on The Glowing Man he sounds like a human being using that powerful sound and focus to reach God. I might be reading too deeply into it but stuff like the chanting on Cloud (whose title is a reference to a mystical Christian text) makes it feel like his bizarre version of liturgical music.
That's the reason I love it the most of the trilogy (and maybe their career), it feels like such an enigmatic person finally stepping down from his weird abstract "what could he possibly mean by this?" pedestal and confidently concluding (musically and thematically) their new sound.

>>72864737
keep me bumped, I'm a little bit busy but I'll be able to write soon

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What do you guys think about he Young God EO? Raping a Slave is a seriously unnerving song.

>>72864993
I'm probably a pleb but I can't tell the difference between any of their Cop-Holy Money songs

>>72864526
>>72864737
I don't even listen to Swans but this thread is actually interesting

>>72862050
this is how I feel about TGM. Their current tour is amazing now but the album mostly doesn't live up. TBK and The Seer translated to studio much better

also where the fuck can I download Deliquescence?!

>>72865140
Man, listen to them. At least The Seer, you might not like it but they're a really special band for a lot of people, you might be missing out
But I agree, good discussion is a rare treat here
>>72865182
Buy it (I actually don't think it's been released yet, I imagine Mikey G will mail them out once they've all been ordered and links will come up a few days after when they start arriving)

>>72865140
have another good thread
>>72641732

Greed and The Seer > everything else

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>>72862050
>I've read 161 of them

>>72865262
yeah but the album is going to be sold on the live shows, probably starting with the show that took place last night

>>72866666
absolutely wasted

>>72866699
yeah sorry for that
your digits are not half bad as well though

>>72865182
fuck that.
Who's got TGA/Drainland's remaster upped?

>>72860700
fuck you i like that album

probably tylo be chillin

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>>72859196
You little piece of shit, take that back right now or I'll whip you with my leather belt just like your dad did before he divorced your mother and left you for good. None of my albums are bad, they're equally transcended and enigmatic.

Give me your address so I can put a .50 round through that thick skull.

>>72862050
hahaha faggot
Ive read 163. You have no idea what you're talking about. But the Glowing man is an A-1 album

>>72859196
She Loves Us makes me want to jerk off furiously.

>>72867571
real talk whenever I masturbate I typically put on album version of The Seer to mute any sounds to my roommates

>>72864993
idk man when i first listened to Cop about a year ago when i was first getting into swans, I knew there was a song on it called Raping A Slave, and i was expecting something atrocious, but i felt there were other songs that were more unnerving than that e.g. Why Hide

>>72867177
what is this meme that Gira is some crazed guy that wants to kill his fans? watch the p4k documentary they did in '12 called The Seer (they were a good publication back then). he seems like such a sound nice guy.

>>72862050
>>72867398
You people are amateur, I've read at least 254 of them, and that's just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. The real number is probably closer to 430-something, I dunno. Anyway, Burning World is their best.

>>72867867
He had a more infamous reputation in the 80s and people on /mu/ just like to parrot what they've read or been told. I actually met Gira last year and he really is a humble and nice human being.

>>72862050
>The people that exalt this album judge music on the basis of its novelty
get off yer fuckin high horse my man, I was simply referring to specific moments that I, personally, enjoyed throughout To Be Kind so that the OP could understand, specifically, what I enjoyed about it.

>the lyrics are worthless
I can already tell you are a pleb, thinking that ANY of the Swans lyrics are supposed to have any value.

>the instrumentation is worthless
I don't understand this criticism because it's almost the same exact instrumentation as any of the other recent Swans records give or take a couple novelty instruments (which appear in every one of their recent records), unless you meant to say arrangements, in which case that is purely a matter of opinion: I thought the arrangements were better on To Be Kind than any other because they always knew what was required of a particular section, it was much more visceral and concerned with the moment than their other albums which is why you say that To Be Kind fails as an experience, completely neglecting to understand what the experience of To Be Kind even is. The experience is, as I said, felt in the moment: the record doesn't concern itself with attempting to create a whole experience that you can look back on and place with certainty, it's about the immediate human desire, about life. Life is moment to moment, not a whole experience: you don't look back on your life and say "well my life is about these things" no, your life is about a plethora of things, it transfigures many times throughout its course, always in response to what is going on around you (just like the record). It's not necessarily about love like many will say, that I will agree with, but To Be Kind has no character? Please.

To Be Kind is fantastic and whoever disagrees is trying too hard to be a contrarian

I think that most of us can agree, regardless of the album's overall quality, that She Loves Us is one of Swans' best songs.

pls someone buy their new live album at their show tonight and upload it for us

>>72862050
tl;dr you fucking loser

>>72870085
I'd do this if it was any other band, but I can't do this to Mikey.

>>72865182
I would also like to register an interest in thieving Deliquescence

>>72870190
come on its going to be out inevitably and its a limited edition, its not like you can buy it whenever

>>72863383

It has 2.5 songs sung by females. That's enough proof for me.

>>72859196
It's in the exact same ballpark as The Seer, for better or for worse

I feel like if Fantano didn't give it a perfect score, it wouldn't attract the hate that it gets

TBK 4 lyfe, one of my all time favorites and truly contrasts with the other Swans albums (in a great way)

I hope Gira works off of the ideas from this latest iteration of Swans. This holy trinity can't be beat.

>>72862141
what the fuck

you should try reading your posts out loud before you click submit

you might realize how ridiculous you sound