Swans: The Burning World
For reasons not known to me this group is called “Swans,” not “The Swans.” I had heard of them here and there, usually described in terms such as “dark,” “scary,” “aggressive,” “noisy,” and so forth: terms which don’t exactly attract me but make me curious. I wouldn’t have gone to much trouble or expense to seek them out, but a few years ago when cassettes were disappearing from the stores I picked this out of a bin of two-dollar items, expecting to discard it after a few listens.
Rather to my surprise, I found not the noise and screaming I expected but a fairly gentle, almost folk-rock sort of sound. Both musically and lyrically this music falls somewhere in the general area of Nick Cave’s more reflective side and Leonard Cohen. Principal singer and mastermind Michael Gira has a deep baritone voice much like Cave’s in its quieter moments. The songs are excellent, with (again) comparisons to Cave and Cohen brought to mind by the combination of melancholy, free-floating mysticism, and a sort of broadly erotic component, in which woman appears as an archetype of the mysterious (e.g. “Mona Lisa, Mother Earth”). The voice of female singer Jarboe on several tracks emphasizes the masculine-feminine dynamic; she sings a really beautiful cover of Steve Winwood’s “Can’t Find My Way Home.” My only real complaint is that the emotional trajectory of the lyrics is downward, from the first (and possibly best) track, “The River That Runs With Love Won’t Run Dry,” to the last, despairing song “God D**n the Sun,” a candidate for the “skip” button if only to prevent that refrain from resonating in one’s head when the album is over.
According to the very negative (1.5 stars!) AMG review, the group was not happy with this album, considering it too toned-down or too polished or something. That review suggests that someone who likes this album might not care for their others, so I don’t know that I’ll seek out anything else by them, but I rather like this one. I would, however, strongly dis-recommend it to anyone who is actually tempted by despair.
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