@@lilwaterpump3289 saying "you must have adhd if you don't enjoy this album" is a stupid thing to say inb4 the moronic explanations like "oh but no that wasn't the point at all", nobody but that idiot mentionned adhd
@@Arkain89 you can't 🙅♂️ enjoy 😄 sad 😔😢 music 🎶🎧 unless 🚫 you 👉 got depression 😞😥 so go 🏃♂️ dip 🍯 your balls 🏈🏈 in some 🏋️♂️ thousand island 🏝 dressing 👗
@@aviemoreno9721 ah, I must've missed that video. That makes sense though, though in my opinion, a lot of albums I would rate very highly I don't need to be in a mood to listen to. I can enjoy them in basically any context. But that's just me, thanks for the response!
@@aviemoreno9721 I listen to Loveless, Carrie & Lowell and Lesser Matters basically all the time though, for perhaps 6 months. Can't get enough of it. It basically puts me in the mood whenever I put it on, so I don't need to be in the mood for it.
I can't fathom how some industrial/experimental/no wave group from the 80s is still getting new listeners, and new listeners who love the music wholeheartedly, no less. To be fair I am one of those listeners, but... still mindboggling how they went from this nobody band in the eyes of the modern music industry to this force to be reckoned with.
I feel almost spoiled that To Be Kind is the first Swans album I ever heard. I immediately fell in love with it and the band, and have been exploring their other music ever since, but nothing will top To Be Kind for me.
I personally think that Soundtracks is better but To Be Kind is definitely amazing. If I want to listen to Swans more casually 9 times out of 10 I listen to The Sound or the live version on Blood Promise on full blast. It blows me away every time
Swans is almost 2 bands for me. Anything pre White Light From the Mouth of Infinity is so much less meditative and brief compared to what would come next. With that in mind the viscerality of Cop and Holy Money give me the same level of enjoyment, but in a completely different way. Those albums also just feel much more like a snapshot in time. A look into a kind of regional music scene that can't exist post internet.
I decided to take a 7-mile walk through my local nature trail while listening to this album for the first time a couple weeks ago. Loved every second of it.
@@tylersquanto8938 was at my brother's house having a few beers one night and had my laptop and put on swans. It was lunacy off of the seer. He comes in joking like what is this chant core??? Lol a week later I saw him post a swans song to his Facebook so win
For me, there's something inherently existential about their music. It cuts right through the bullshit and hits at the heart of what makes people uncomfortable, and then makes you relish that discomfort as you keep listening, because their rhythms are almost hypnotic despite being purposely dissonant and atonal at times. That's difficult to do, especially coming back after a decade and sounding similar but still saying something different. All their new albums are like that.
I was listening to this album last night, lying in my bed, lights off, eyes closed, experiencing this record. I agree, it’s more than just music, this is something I’ll return to a couple times a year and reserve 2 hours just to lose myself in it. Not many albums have done that
Thank you, Anthony, for putting me onto this album and consequently putting me onto Swans and throwing me into the noise rock/no wave/experimental rock genre. It has become one of my favorite of all time (as you may notice).
Out of all your 10/10 records this album has gripped me the most (ironically The Money Store is "only" #2). At this point I have listened to the record quite a lot of times and it is still feels like a journey every time. So thank you Anthony for showing me this beast of a record that I probably would have overlooked if it wasn't for your review five years ago.
@@TheXducharme No way, the vocal performance is what sells the song - Michael literally barking like a dog over the horn section is so absurd and disturbing alone its brilliant.
@@IvefoundthetruthonMay I think after listening to the Seer a little more A Piece of the Sky is the best song of the new Swans era but I think To Be Kind as an album is a little more consistent. Soundtracks is objectively their best album, and I think that one day, long after Gira dies, it will be the album that makes more people appreciate Swans. Don't sleep on Swans Are Dead and Public Castration either.
@@tk3136 Agreed. And I think you're right about that. Swans Are Dead is one of the best live albums ever recorded. + Michael Gira has a song "Blind", if you heard it. It's beautiful, phenomenal.
@@IvefoundthetruthonMay Blood Promise from Swans Are Dead I think is my all time favorite Swans song. I really like the live version of Helpless Child too
Swans Are Dead was their undeniable peak. The Blood Promise version is so fucking cathartic it's not funny. Dude at the end implores a "Don't stop" and then Gira trolls us by screaming really hard in our ears
been following you way before this review, but finally listening to swans. man i wish i didn’t wait this long. soundtracks for the blind is up next of my listening sessions
I’ve listened to To Be Kind once during a drive down to LA in summer of 14’ and it was enough to have a lasting impression. It’s the first album where I feel I am not ready to go back to listen again. I may do so after watching your review ✨👍🏽
I was fortunate enough to catch Swans live - in a converted gothic style church in Scotland (raining outside of course)...INTENSE...when I first discovered Swans I was unable to listen to any other music for months. I was gripped trying to fill myself on them. Gira is a true artist using music to reach deep inside this human. I had a 2 hour cross country car ride yesterday and revisited To Be Kind - as intense, gripping, visceral, terrifying....entertaining as ever. I COMPLETELY agree Fantano here. Open your mind and give it a go
To take these to the next level, do a commentary video where you watch your own review and reminisce about how you felt back then and how great you were.
I’d never heard of Swans until I watched a Tool interview yesterday. I then watched your reviews of them. The universe wants me to listen to them it seems.
I find it interesting that TBK is your favourite of the contemporary Swans trio; I always thought it the poppiest / radio-friendly of the three and The Seer to be the most aggressive / abstract, i.e. the pinacle of the concept you were discussing in this video.
this album really thrills on vinyl. when you listen to the record, the title track becomes a new favorite. i have no idea how they got the end so loud. its like the re-release of Shape of Punk to Come, where the chorus of Liberation Frequency is disproportionately visceral (in a good way)
I'm still wrapping my head around this album as well. There is plenty to love and a great many memorable moments in the hypnotic vastness. Personally I enjoy The Seer the most out of the three latest albums.
Christian Withers just because TPAB is dense does not mean kendrick is overthinking it. once you study and dissect the album it makes perfect sense and everything connects beautifully
Agreed, this record seems ripped from another dimension. The performances are very dynamic, meditative, spiritual - It's also so well paced and is as engaging as any film which is appropriate given michael calls this quasi visual
I still think the most impressive quality about Swans is that they can keep a schedule. While Kanye is in year two of Yahndi being done “maybe soon, maybe not soon” (and this isn’t the first time he’s run up against deadlines), Swans say they will finished mixing in July and finish mixing in July, say they will release in October and are still on schedule to meet that. Not to mention that Tool are releasing a fifth album after a dozen years of saying “we promise it’s going to happen soon.” I just hope the best for them all, but Swans deserve more credit for how dutifully they seem to get things done on these massive opuses they create every few years now.
I have very mixed feelings about Swans in general. This album, though, is magnificent. I feel like To Be Kind is a good balance of Swans' ability to resonate in a disturbing way, *and* remain actually kind of catchy. I still revisit "Oxygen" on a regular basis. "A Little God In My Hands" and "Just a Little Boy" still make me feel gross. If sound could rot, this would be it. EDIT: Also, I don't know whether you're planning to revisit albums from this decade regularly - it would certainly be time-consuming - but it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on Sun Kil Moon's "Benji" after five (?) years. I haven't enjoyed much of his output as much as you, but that album still sticks out as the best parts of Sun Kil Moon in one record.
I feel this massiveness you mention also with the album Manafon from David Sylvian, but in a different dimension and aesthetic, you should check it out.
I think the theme of the album is a father coming to terms with his own fatherhood and the amount of responsibility and power that comes with that. It's similar to Eraserhead. "A little god in my hands" is the thesis, the acknowledgement that this child now controls his entire being. "To be kind" is him acknowledging the banality of everything while still accepting what he has to do. He comes to terms with the fact that it is his responsibility, and even though he never valued kindness before he has to turn to it now even if it doesn't feel genuine. It's about a father's switch from nihilistic and almost hedonistic behavior, to embracing a more existential approach.
I dunno if it's as simple as that, personally. I do like the idea of that particular song being about an infant/child realising what it is ("eye full of sun, hand full of mud"). Or even at the very least, a "universal" summation of the innocent point of view of a child. I don't know how far those themes stretch beyond just that track though. No examples really come to mind
Not sure if Gira put that much thought into the album concept. I can't remember where I read this, but I once saw this album being compared to a newborn baby's experience of the world. Everything they see and hear is new and disorienting and likely awe-inspiring but they don't know how to express it so they just cry. I would say if there is any theme Swans were consciously trying to get across it's maximalism. I've heard a lot of loud, heavy, grating music, but this was the first record where I thought of the word "maximalist" to describe it.
