Swans

To Be Kind

To Be Kind thrills in and with discomfort: radical dynamics and collapsing rhythms, uncompromising runtimes and repugnant sentiments.

To Be Kind achieves an intimacy no Swans album has ever approached, but it also ranks among their most turbulent works to date.

'To Be Kind' is not easy or pleasant; it will probably repel and confuse as much as it inspires. It’s a Hieronymous Bosch painting come to life, impossible to tear your eyes away from despite the grotesque atrocities it depicts.

To Be Kind is an absolute behemoth of a record no matter how you slice it, delivered by a machine that is somehow possessed enough to go to hell over and over, each time bringing back its incubus in newer, darker forms.

These songs roll in like dark clouds, heave and grunt like a galley slave under the lash, or beat relentlessly, like a forehead hammering against a wall.

Michael Gira is a man unafraid to follow his muse wherever it may take him, and To Be Kind is another example of his singular vision writ large without compromise.

To Be Kind is evidence that they continue to grow and may not have reached their peak yet.

It is a literally awesome record, huge, stark songs that explode with tectonic immensity. But its immensity is such that it never quite gets its hooks in the way ‘The Seer’ did

It is an album that, with a little bit of dedication and a bit of effort leaves you agog. 

That’s the challenge of To Be Kind, and indeed all of Swans’ music as of late; even when it is catchy, as it often is, it calls for the listener’s entire focus.

Swans have always made albums that are meant to get you to sit down and really *listen,* but with To Be Kind, that seems especially true. The dynamic range on the album is, quite literally, startling.

By the end, you will also feel as though you have touched something profound, something elemental. If this sounds enticing, good luck, and be careful.

This time around, the band seem a bit more comfortable with using production to serve the songs on the record ... The effect is wholly satisfying, confusing and obliterating — everything a Swans record should be. 

Though Swans’ records are invariably seedy, To Be Kind is downright sexy, tender like a snake and surprisingly intimate.

On the evidence of To Be Kind, Gira and co. have thoroughly outlasted and outperformed their atonal contemporaries and honed their hostile grind into a sinewy and slinky onslaught of light and shade.

Incredibly, they're becoming even less safe, even less predictable, as they near pension age

Moods and settings are carefully established, and as each track unfolds, it's never immediately evident whether the conclusion of any given odyssey will more likely be lyrically or viscerally climactic, or both.

These days, they don't just crush – they hypnotize.

To Be Kind is uncompromising to the point of overindulgence. It's a patience-testing two hours long.