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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Blunt Force Trauma, December 10, 2004
Anyone familiar with this early outing from Swans will understand this review, any who are not familiar will not be able to imagine the bombast contained on this recording. It has to be heard and upon listening you will either never listen to it again or you will be hooked. No other band has ever or will ever make music this heavy and powerful - BUT it is not "Heavy Metal" music. Swans music completely sets bands like Korn , Metallica , Slipknot ,Pantera etc to the side . Strangely enough the feel of early Swans may be too brutal for fans of these type acts. In blues terms it would be kind of like trying to compare John Mayer to Son House - one is an architect and one is a consumer product.
Michael Gira is the master architect behind Swans and has always had a gift for conveying authentic raw emotion through music. From what I can gather about Gira he sets out to create sounds that he would like to hear in music and he utilizes a great deal of artistic prowess and psychological content , he does not like to commit his ideas to too much meaning or ego which I find refreshing. He does however seem to have a drive to create and move on to the next thing , basically challenging himself to continually break new ground . Swans have been through about 5 phases and successfully morphed into a logical progressive sound each time until disbanded . Gira continues to make some of his best music ever under his new Angels of Light squad, which has a varied line up on each of their 3 outstanding releases : New Mother , How I Loved You , and Everything is Good Here , Please Come Home. Check these out if you want to hear something truly unique.
Back to Filth & Body to Body , Job to Job. Filth is the first Swans release to my knowledge and it has been reissued here along with BTB JTJ , which are a collection of live and rare recordings , some from their "COP" release . Each cut on Filth is a ritualistic , pounding release of emotion . There is nothing formula here , this is true originality. There are no neo-Bach lead guitar solos or any other tripe you hear in heavy metal music. The time signatures here are mid to low tempo and are very uncommon in any type of music, however everything is delivered with a force that cannot be ignored. Norm Westerberg's contorted mixture of power chords and harmonics make for a guitar sound unlike most. The drums are very well produced and powerful throughout the recording . One of the signature features of Swans early music is the use of repititon and a committed attack that each player offers , almost like getting a car door slammed on your head. The vocals are no different , mainly commands and one word statements delivered in a howl of disoreintation. There is a lot of rage here but not in a commercial way , it is in a truly unsettling yet captivating way. That is because the squad is playing honestly and not trying to cater to a pre-established musical niche.
If you want to hear something heavy that is not just more consumer product check this pair of disks out . If you can make it through both disks then you must understand what the artists were doing , if you don't make it through you will remember how you felt listening to a few songs for a long time.
Don't let the teeth scare you away! Peace
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Throught the past darkly, May 8, 2000
This 2cd set, the latest in a series of Swans reissues, documents the earliest period of this amazing band's diverse history. Over the more than 15 years of their existance, the Swans explored a large variety of musical styles. The material presented in this reissue (most of which has been out of print and unavailable for years) is extremely harsh and visceral. Some may categorize this as punk or early hardcore, but the Swans were never really a part of either movement. In fact, most fans of hardcore and punk music would probably find this music to be too slow and repetitive. This is challenging music, but definitely rewarding. Songs on Filth like "Stay Here", "Power for Power" and "Weakling" convey a deep sennse of anger and desolation. The Filth disc is definitely the most rewarding of this set, as the material on Body to Body consists mostly of studio demos, experiments and live tracks (then again, to the collector, material like this is extremely valuable). As a bonus, a live show recorded in 1982 is included in the set (at the end of the Filth disc). This live material is even more visceral and challenging than the studio versions, but it provides an excellent window into the Swans past. Those wishing to get into the Swans would probably be better off checking out their later material like Various Failures or Soundtracks for the Blind, but this set is highly recommended for Swans fans interested in how this intriguing band started out.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
'Flex Your Muscles', January 14, 2007
Swans could only have come from New York, no other city other than Berlin could have produced such a glorious cacophony of unrelenting brutality. For me Swans rests somewhere between real industrial (not 90s industrial metal) and noise-rock. Their only peers would have been Glenn Branca, The Butthole Surfers, early Sonic Youth (who were more song based) and Einsturzende Neubauten. On `Filth' they use repetition to exhilarating effect slowing everything down to a virtual crawl. It's difficult to describe this album but know one thing: nothing produced before or after it can match it in the brutality stakes. Like a wrecking ball it demolishes your weak mind while never overstaying it's welcome. This release also includes plenty live material as a bonus, which is where one can really feel the power and beauty in their destruction. `Filth' is as the title would suggest an ugly beast of an album that will beat you and leave you paralysed on floor simply because it can. This release in particular is one of my favourite albums of all time and life without it would be incomplete. Strong medicine indeed and highly recommended. Swans were in my opinion one of the greatest bands ever.
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