Swans - Great Annihilator
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Music CD Cover
Artist: SwansEdition: Music CD
Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2002-01-22
Music Label: Young God Records
Soundtracks:
- In
- I Am the Sun
- She Lives
- Celebrity Lifestyle
- Mother/Father
- Blood Promise
- Mind/Body/Light/Sound
- My Buried Child
- Warm
- Alcohol the Seed
- Killing for Company
- Mother's Milk
- Where Does a Body End?
- Telepathy
- Great Annihilator
- Out
- I Am the Sun [Live at the Flesh Club]
Free Music Notes for Great Annihilator
Free Music Review: Blood-drenched pulse of the universe
Hit: 5 Stars
Not as magical as the preceding album 'Love of Life', yet darker and more epic in tone, 'The Great Annihilator' is one of Swans' finest works. The album feels claustrophobic, as if we are caught in the lungs of the cosmos as it breathes outwards (creation) then inwards (destruction).
A handful of the songs would have fit perfectly on the aforementioned 'Love of Life', for instance 'Blood Promise', an utterly beautiful piece: "Every breath, I stole from you, and I will never see your perfect body...I'll never betray your blood promise." But the sense of a force of gravity is far stronger here than on the albums which immediately preceded it. On 'Alcohol the Seed' Gira claims he needs alcohol to "open his blood" (he certainly wouldn't be the first artist to do so).
Another familiar Swans theme is the amorphousness of boundaries between the body and the universe, and two songs on this album deal strongly with this theme ('Mind/Body/Light/Sound' and 'Where Does A Body End?'). These are two of the most musically compelling pieces, especially the latter, although nearly every track on the album has a rich, hypnotic pull which it is hard to get away from.
'Celebrity Lifestyle' is a blackly humourous piece, which might well have been written about Paris Hilton (if it hadn't been penned in 1994). "All her children want a suck and a taste, of her celebrity lifestyle...a self-reflecting image of a narcotised mind...the perfect image of the end of time." Michael Gira has written a perfect portrait of a society in its death throes. Indeed, if a culture is judged by those it adulates then our own must surely stand condemned.
Jarboe contributes vocals on several songs, the best of which is 'Mother/Father', an intense piece about how "creation and time are made from destruction". But destruction is also 'made' from creation, and surprisingly few artists acknowledge that!
If you want to hear the best music of Swans, 'The Great Annihilator' is a good place to start, along with 'Love of Life' and 'The Burning World'. My wife just informed me that Gira has reformed the band and they have a new album in the pipeline. If it matches its illustrious predecessors, it will be fine indeed.
Great Annihilator Poster
Their 12th album, 'The Great Annihilator, is a majestic symphony of haunting melodies and shifting moods. Spirituality - or rather the absence of it - provides the linking motif. Taken on its own, this album is a vivid example of how to combine the dissonant with the dulcet while retaining a dangerous edge. Viewed in the context of the Swans' 12-year journey from audio pornography to majestic romanticism, The Great Annihilator serves as an epic apotheosis. Packaged in a Digipak. Young God Records.Alternative Rock Music CDs
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