# early SWANS



## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

Outside of classical music this could be the loudest most aggressive music.I like early swans in small dose because it's kinda very satanic, so i can't lisen to them all the time even if enjioy, there relentless brutally of the early years.

I like to point out i rarely lisen to* filth *swans first album after there e.p on neutral.Because this album lack in amateurism a bit.

*Cop* is a good album it sonic heaviness will obliterate yah. so is the following e.p* Young god*.This music is beyond dark (it's like being stock in a blackhole).One of my favorite perriod.

Than there is the* greed *and * holey money *perriod quite strong, Music more orchestrated, occasional female vocal, still painfully brutal.Than there is the* children of god *period that as folk rock element
but still feature unsetling song like new mind and sex god sex, the relentless ''slow industrial grind''(grind not as in metal).

Many so called doom band tried to emulated there primal heavy skrunk of the early days, whiteout succes only a few achieve this kinda swans sound.

To this date only fews band manage to be in same league, the following
-*of cabbage and Kings *a band that feature Algis Kysis from swans
-*Worms* there first full lenght cd and there heaven towards 7''(from finland)
-* mao morta *(old experimental rock portuguese band sometime very swans-y

They may be other , but* i dont count doom metal bands in, not a fan of metal*.Im more of a a hard rocker and prog rock dude.But since swans become poppular among hipster these days i dont wanna lisen to em.

I like to point out some of this music is hellish not for the fainted heart, some of you our familiar whit them maybe.

Have a nice days guys :tiphat:


----------



## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

They never grabbed my interest. They seemed to be a mix of neo-folk (I am not interested in folk music and never have been) and hard, aggressive noise rock. They made a come-back in the last couple of years; this newer material, My Father, The Seer..., has some appeal, but it is a rocky road. Their music is somewhat an exercise in endurance  They are supposed to be pretty good in concert.


----------



## Guest (Jun 26, 2014)

I like all Swans I've heard, but I haven't heard Burning World or the new album, and admittedly My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky didn't make a huge impression. 

Children Of God, White Light From The Mouth Of Infinity, Soundtracks For The Blind, and The Seer are enough to make them one of the finest bands of all time in the rock idiom. And Filth/Cop are good fun.

Edit: I should add that I failed to see Swans when they were in town because one friend couldn't make it and the back-up plan couldn't afford the ticket. In retrospect, I was an idiot to not cover the guy's ticket.

Edit 2: They also are a good band when it comes to mixing up the material for live albums, rather than just playing a random playlist just the way they were written. See: Public Castration Is A Good Idea.


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Of course I have the Swans' _Filth_ album -- on original pressing black vinyl on the NEUTRAL label, N11, a 1983 release.









Since I collected punk rock records with teeth on the cover, the _Filth_ album was a sure addition to my shelf, featuring as it does one of the finest sets of teeth to grace a record cover.

The music isn't so bad, either. This is one of the "teeth on the cover albums" that I actually played occasionally. A heavy, generally slow crashing sound permeates the album. There's nothing like cueing up this slab of wax on a VPI Scoutmaster fitted with a ClearAudio Maestro Wood cartridge running through a tubed Little Dot headphone amp into a pair of Sennheiser HD600s. Every nook and cranny of the sound, every thump, whine, and groan comes through with shocking clarity -- my kind of experience. (I'm actually listening to Side 1 on the very setup described as I type.) "Stay Here", the opening number, is a powerful piece that draws one's ears into the depths of the havoc to follow. Though the complete album professes to less than great variety (this _ain't _the Beatles' _White_ album!), I've always had a special fondness for "Right Wrong," the second track on Side 2. With its obvious industrial strength sound, it provides a great "sample" of what early Swans was all about. And you can't beat the terseness of the lyrics. This ain't Shakespeare for sure, but hell ... if any of you morons out there haven't yet heard this, get with it. Life is too short to deprive yourself of a session with "Right Wrong".

Wrong Or Right
It's Not Right
Wrong Or Right
It's Wrong

Use Your Body To Get Satisfaction
Use Your Body To Get Satisfaction

Satisfy The Dog, Satisfy The Dog
Satisfy The Dog, Satisfy The Dog

Use Your Hands To Build Things
Use Your Hands To Break Things

Right Or Wrong
It's Not Right
Right Or Wrong
It's Right

Satisfy The Dog
Satisfy The Dog

On the sheer strength of _Filth_, an album I originally purchased only because of the dentated cover, I later picked up Greed -- again, black vinyl, K.422 PVC 8949, but no teeth on the cover. This album opens with promise of a new land ... but _just_ the promise. It must be the piano, an addition to the earlier album's scoring. A real bonus, though, is the addition of contributions from Jarboe. You who are true believers will need no introduction of her.









In the end, _Greed _proves an expansion over _Filth_, but I remained loyal to the original vision and pursued no further into Swans' vision until _Seer_, the triple vinyl release from 2012 (Young God Records, B008LAO7C8) came rolling off the presses. Hey! It had teeth on the cover, too!









That disc, I see, is still ensconced in its shrink wrap packaging. Maybe one of these days, when I have a _real_ bad migraine, I'll open it and see what Michael Gira and guys (and girls) have to offer. (Last time I sought out a piece of new vinyl to get rid of a splitting headache I discovered a slab titled _Zen Arcade _ by American punk rockers Hüsker Dü, and you know where _that_ led. -- Hmm ... and if I recall correctly, that experience came right between my initiation into _Filth_ and my follow up with _Greed_. -- The mid '80s were something else, weren't they?)

Flex your muscles, guys.

---------------
By the way ... while I was retrieving my Swans albums for this post, I happened upon my Wilma disc, SUBTERRANEAN sub50 (recorded 1981, released posthumously in 1985) -- I must own nearly the entire SUB catalog on vinyl. The teeth on the cover are a bit subtle and belong to an ink drawn dragon and wolf. Wilma was a short-lived girl punk band with a couple of great tunes, including a cover of the Seekers 1968 hit "Georgy Girl" which is spelled "Georgie Girl" on the Wilma record. Hey, the misspelling fits their handling of the song, which is classic. I always hated the Seekers's "Georgy Girl" till I heard Wilma cover it. I'm going to set this up for a listen later on.









You morons would love my record collection, especially if you don't have any teeth.


----------

