Part mind numbing, part infuriating, part stimulating and always worth discussion, Swans remain a significant force in underground and independent music and this new album sees the No Wave merge with the compositionally avant-garde.
My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope To the Sky, from the title’s evocation of righteous death on down to its suffusion with keening strings and other touches of sonic Americana, is an attempt to come to terms with the dark heart of history, with that ultimate question: if we are born into crime and monstrous darkness, how do we become more than that past?
Whatever the case, we finally have My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky to judge, and—whatever baggage it might carry—what a gift it turns out to be.
What My Father does is not so much mark a return but a synthesis of previous Swans incarnations, a sort of Voltron album for the venerable experimental band.
If My Father doesn’t quite achieve the perfection (what else can you call it?) of their last albums, it nevertheless takes up where they left off.
Yet My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky sounds more like the essence of Michael Gira than the Angels Of Light ever did, and ought to also serve as another broadside to the idea of reformations being inherently grubby and uncreative ventures.
My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky is a mercilessly intense and beautiful record that only Swans could pull off, and that no matter who plays in the band, Gira was and is Swans: their sound, their musical and poetic vision, their heartbeat.
This album is the antithesis of 2010's gooey let's-all-be-friends chillwave fun.
Doesn’t matter that he’s 56 years old, Gira hasn’t lost his ingenious Sidam Touch. Just as always, he spins arbitrary styles and instrumentation into casual entropy, Father being the optimistic example that, yes, bands can reconvene and as record as if they never broke up.
This is certainly, then, not an album to be taken lightly. Whilst this may be its chief difficulty, and one that will undoubtedly deter and daunt some listeners, it is nevertheless good to have a band and an artist with this darkly poetic a vision back recording and performing once again.
In the context of Swans latter output, My Father… is typically challenging, with the lead-heavy opener No Words/No Thoughts treading over nine minutes of distorted abstraction; mixing imperial, instrumental ascents with Gira’s shadowed vocals. It’s a polarizing gambit, and a sure sign that Swans have returned with an uncompromising (and nihilistic) intent.
Swans, who emerged from the same noise-filled no wave scene in New York's early 80s as Thurston Moore, had a rotating cast of nasty-tempered psychotic rockers, with multi-instrumentalist Michael Gira at its centre. Listening to Swans' new album, the first in 14 years, you get the sense that some of that malevolence remains.
My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky isn't all cranium-crushing bleakness, just mostly.
Edit: way better than I remember
Took me 2 years to listen to this because I was so attached to Swans other work
It’s gucci
Some songs here are amazing and definitely worth coming back to. Some songs felt a bit too stripped back, but it was overall a positive experience. I enjoyed it front to back, but maybe front a bit more.
All I can do while listening to this is imagine how insane it would have been for a Swans fan at the time, especially after 14 years of complete inactivity. It's certainly overshadowed a lot by the trilogy, but it's still a pretty damn solid LP, and has some amazing and very powerful moments on it for sure. This album is the underdog of Swans.
Favourite tracks: ★ No Words / No Thoughts, Inside Madeline, Eden Prison
"MFWGMUARTTS" is Swans return after nearly 2 decades of radio silence after "SFTB". And while it does at certain points it does feel like Gira and the gang trying to get back into the swing of things on tracks like "My Birth" and "Reeling The Liars In", but apart from those tracks, this was a really great comeback album! The noisier tracks are just as great as they've been on previous albums, and the more folky acoustic cuts on here, while not as ... read more
Swans Review #14 "My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky" Album
Pretty much Mumford and Sons. This much better than I remember. Jim is so good.
Liked Tracks: No Words / No Thoughts, Reeling The Liars In, Jim, My Birth, Inside Madeline, Eden Prison
Favourite Track: Jim
Worst Track: Little Mouth
1 | No Words / No Thoughts 9:24 | 92 |
2 | Reeling The Liars In 2:20 | 76 |
3 | Jim 6:46 | 87 |
4 | My Birth 3:52 | 80 |
5 | You Fucking People Make Me Sick 5:08 | 83 |
6 | Inside Madeline 6:37 | 83 |
7 | Eden Prison 6:03 | 85 |
8 | Little Mouth 4:12 | 79 |
#3 | / | The Quietus |
#3 | / | Tiny Mix Tapes |
#18 | / | FACT Magazine |
#18 | / | No Ripcord |
#22 | / | NME |
#25 | / | Prefix |
#35 | / | Stereogum |
#41 | / | Treble |
#42 | / | Cokemachineglow |
#44 | / | MOJO |