Leaving Meaning - Swans: Review
are a New York experimental rock band who first arose out of the cities No-Wave scene in the early 80's, before transitioning into a myriad of experimental rock genres in the 90's. The group took a long break and reformed in 2010 for a string of 4 records that have been some of their most critically acclaimed of their entire storied career. Front-man Michael Gira has been the consistent presence around a revolving cast of musicians, and after 4 records with a generally similar line-up, some new musicians have been recruited for Leaving Meaning.
Review By Lavender:
If you know anything about my views on Swans, you probably think that I hate the band and their music, which just isn't the case. I have a soft spot for some of their early no-wave releases like Filth and Children Of God, their 1998 record Soundtracks For The Blind is an effortlessly unique marvel of experimental rock music. When the band reformed in 2010 many were skeptical of their first record My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky, but I enjoyed it. The second release of this era was the fantastic 201 record The Seer which contains some of my favorite of the groups songs to date, most notably Lunacy. It was unfortunately after this that the general public of music listeners skyrocketed their praise for the band, so when mine dropped off the perception of me surrounding the band changed. Swans 2014 record To Be Kind has a number of good moments and it even made it into the bottom quarter of my albums of the year list, I didn't hate it. But at over 2 hours in runtime To Be Kind is one of the most bloated experiences you'll hear in any album, across any record this decade. Some of the sputtering and worthless nonsense that pops up on To Be Kind makes records from acts like Autechre and Prurient look scant. The follow-up The Glowing Man was even worse as all the nonsense was met with even less worthwhile songwritng to break it up. I was looking forward to the new era of Swans music hoping that some creativity would shine through and I would be as intrigued with the beginning of this era as I was the last one. Unfortunately while this is certainly an improvement from The Glowing Man, some of Swans trademark nonsense pops up all over Leaving Meaning.
One of the things that surprised me about this record is that at least half of it, maybe even more than half, I really enjoyed. Had it been properly cut back there is a really good record lying underneath here. Annaline gets the record started off right by pulling from the Nick Cave playbook. The track is actually a genuinely pretty one with a blissful instrumental and a commanding lead vocal performance in tone and stature. The Hanging Man has a sound much more familiar with what the band has been doing recently, I love the hypnotic and cycling instrumental that gets paired with some huge changing. Like most Swans songs it overstays its welcome a little but this one never gets tedious.
Cathedrals In Heaven is one of the best songs of the bunch with a rhythmic and methodical progression I fall right into every single time I hear it. The way the songs tight loops evolve and change is strongly compelling and represents so much of what I look for in the bands music. The Nub is one of the most interesting of the really long tracks here which I can attribute to just how strange it all is. The chanting is surreal and compelling and mixes with the instrumentation in a was that keeps me engaged for so much of the songs long runtime, something I wish the record could do more often.
It's Coming It's Real takes a long time to get going and it is a pretty hard listen early in the track, thankfully it is working towards something very worthwhile and the last few minutes of the song make for one of my favorite passages on this entire album. Finally the closing track My Phantom Limb is a pretty typical Swans track with the long wandering composition and being too long for its own good. I actually think this is a decent song that has some genuinely thrilling moments and it certainly isn't the worst track here that could have served as the closer.
So that is just about half the record and I think it is pretty decent, a creative change of pace for Swans that excites me for what may come next. Unfortunately this record is also filled by numerous of the flat out worst songs I have heard all year in 2019, and they make sections of this album a straight up disaster. Amnesia breaks up the momentum that the record started off with as it imitates Lou Reed very poorly. The song has some unique individual moments but as a whole it has no momentum or cohesion.
The next two tracks, jesus christ. Leaving Meaning is the title track of this thing but describing what happens in this song is like explaining nothing, I wouldn't know how, it's just nothing. 11 minutes long and I could forget about it WHILE i'm listening to it, this is definitely as bad or worse than any of the long and taxing tracks on the last two Swans records. SOMEHOW even worse may be the next song Sunfucker. Every time Michael Gira opens his mouth in this song I get closer and closer to never wanting to listen to any of the Swans records I actually like just to avoid hearing the same voice that commits this 10 minutes of listless, pointless, even borderline disastrous, auditory manslaughter.
The closing 4th of the album thankfully keeps its awful tracks much shorter. Some New Things is what happens when "experimental" becomes a formula. Maybe in isolation I would think this track is a little bit better but having heard so much else of what Swans has done this just sounds like a diet version that I would never return to. Finally What Is This? takes on some folk influence and while I don;'t flat out hate it, it does sound like a slowed down Decemberists track. While I admire the stylistic shift I don't think this track is really in Swans wheelhouse.
Leaving Meaning is what happens when 40 minutes worth of decent ideas are stretched over an hour and a half of music. For every worthwhile or exciting minute of a song, there are two minutes of this record that are either aimless and dreadful, or explosive and torturous. The excellent pacing of My Father and the brash creativity of The Seer have never felt further away than they do right now, and every time I made myself listen to Sunfucker for this review, my patience for Swans ever being good again going forward is ran more and more thin. 4.5/10
