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CRITIC REVIEWS
100
The ten tracks collected here, ranging from five to 34 minutes in length, demonstrate everything that Swans have ever been over their career, but it is their bloody mindedness that continues to stand out.
100
Swans are as furious and as boundary-pushing as they’ve ever been, and despite the meticulous composition of the album, there’s still the constant nagging suspicion that Gira has gone utterly, chaotically insane.
100
If you’re already a Swans fan, you won’t listen to it as many times as you’ve listened to Children Of God, Holy Money or the equally-gargantuan Soundtracks For The Blind, but you’ll love it every time you do hear it. Guaranteed.
100
Swans' latest album takes a hypnotic, meditative approach to churning out some of the most grand and visceral rock instrumentation in the band's 13-album discography.
93
That is the beauty and wonder of a massive work of art like this. There is no end to the nuances and subtleties that lay within. Find your starting point and start exploring.
92
To Be Kind adheres to a policy of transcendence by any means necessary, even if it means repeatedly bashing you in the face with a mallet until you’re seeing stars and colors.
91
In its droning self-focus, To Be Kind exposes the core, both its own and the listener’s, revealing the visceral building blocks of the song as well as the acts of listening and existing.
91
It’s a veritable gnostic gospel of noise-rock; hovering above the scraping and sawing of most mere mortals with guitars and drums, the album scrapes and saws as if attacking the fabric of reality rather than mere sanity.
91
To Be Kind is a loving ode to chaos, full of deranged, mutant energy and even more brilliant for it.
90
'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.
90
To Be Kind achieves an intimacy no Swans album has ever approached, but it also ranks among their most turbulent works to date.
90
As all-consuming a ritual as rock music is capable of giving us, and also as viscerally, joyously life-affirming.
90
To Be Kind thrills in and with discomfort: radical dynamics and collapsing rhythms, uncompromising runtimes and repugnant sentiments.
90
While its progeny hasn’t fallen far from the tree, ‘To Be Kind’ is altogether more colourful, an expansive record – fleshier, bloodier and lusciously psychedelic.
80
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.
80
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.
80
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
80
It is an album that, with a little bit of dedication and a bit of effort leaves you agog.
80
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.
80
Incredibly, they're becoming even less safe, even less predictable, as they near pension age
80
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.
80
Though Swans’ records are invariably seedy, To Be Kind is downright sexy, tender like a snake and surprisingly intimate.
80
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.
80
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.
80
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.
75
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.
70
These days, they don't just crush – they hypnotize.
60
To Be Kind is uncompromising to the point of overindulgence. It's a patience-testing two hours long.
After 30+ listens to this 2 hour masterpiece... anything less then a perfect score feels so wrong. This is one of the albums that got me exploring different genres. It's unbelievable
Track ratings:
Screen Shot - 10/10
Just A Little Boy (For Chester Burnett) - 10/10
A Little God In My Hands - 9/10
Bring The Sun/Toussaint L'Ouverture - 11/10
Some Things We Do - 10/10
She Loves Us - 8/10
Kirsten Supine - 10/10
Oxygen - 10/10
Nathalie Neal - 10/10
To Be Kind - 10/10
The overall experience, ... read more
Track ratings:
Screen Shot - 10/10
Just A Little Boy (For Chester Burnett) - 10/10
A Little God In My Hands - 9/10
Bring The Sun/Toussaint L'Ouverture - 11/10
Some Things We Do - 10/10
She Loves Us - 8/10
Kirsten Supine - 10/10
Oxygen - 10/10
Nathalie Neal - 10/10
To Be Kind - 10/10
The overall experience, ... read more
The thirteenth album of Swans is a work that it's pulled with hands in blood, it's arranged by demons and its conceptuality embarks everything in the mind of M.Gira the monster behind this double monster. To Be Kind is a two-hour journey full of screams, tears, whispering voices, epic outros, spiritism, mantras, violence and putting the savage in this masterpiece is putting the glory (in my opinion) in the best album by this extraordinary band. To Be Kind is insane, wonderful, ... read more
it would be unfair to give this any score that's not a 100. The only problem I have with it is being so long, that means I can't listen to it all the time.
Favorite Songs: LITERALLY EVERY SONG
Least Favorite Songs: suck my ass, this album is perfect
Favorite Songs: LITERALLY EVERY SONG
Least Favorite Songs: suck my ass, this album is perfect
It's not music you can listen to all the time, but not because it's something you only want to spin occasionally - it's an album that benefits from being given one full uninterrupted spin, maybe even scheduling your whole day around it, allowing yourself time to take in the sheer power of it and then process and digest it.
END OF YEAR LISTS
| #1 | / | The Needle Drop |
| #3 | / | The Quietus |
| #3 | / | The Wire |
| #5 | / | PopMatters |
| #6 | / | Pitchfork |
| #7 | / | No Ripcord |
| #8 | / | Pretty Much Amazing |
| #10 | / | Drowned in Sound |
| #11 | / | The Skinny |
| #12 | / | Crack Magazine |
| #13 | / | Stereogum |
| #14 | / | CMJ |
| #14 | / | musicOMH |
| #17 | / | SPIN |
| #18 | / | A.V. Club |
More Lists
MISC LISTS
| #3 | / | Stereogum (First Half) |
| #5 | / | Exclaim! (Pop & Rock) |
| #5 | / | Pretty Much Amazing (First Half) |
| #7 | / | Exclaim (First Half) |
| #85 | / | Pitchfork (2010-2014) |
Track List
Disc 1
- Screen Shot
- Just A Little Boy (For Chester Burnett)
- A Little God In My Hands
- Bring The Sun/Toussaint L'Ouverture
- Some Things We Do
Disc 2
- She Loves Us
- Kirsten Supine
- Oxygen
- Nathalie Neal
- To Be Kind
User Lists
In Library (139)
Contributions By
thisisabtlgrnd, patton, indiegalaxy10, wallver, klopsiarz, pmablog, philthy, erik, MolotovChivas93
stereogum.com
New Track: Swans – “When Will I Return” 
stereogum.com
Premature Evaluation: Swans "To Be Kind" 
Added on: January 27, 2014
