Album Review: Swans - "Swans" (1982)

Swans

Swans

1982

So... Well... Here's the first Swans EP. The band who is now known as an innovator in industrial, goth and post-rock music, began life here sounding very similar to its brethren in the New York no-wave scene, such as Sonic Youth and Mars (Thurston Moore was even a guitarist for our Swans at one point early in their lifespan). The main difference here is that there's a more industrial edge to it than most of them... If you want a basic description of how the whole thing sounds, imagine Sonic Youth mixed with Throbbing Gristle, and the bass turned up. Quite amusing here how Michael Gira's voice is fairly high and similar to Thurston Moore's, very much opposite to his gravelly bellows on later material.

For sure, this gives me a great picture of a desperate, strung-out, disenfranchised subculture in pre-Giuliani New York, wandering dark and dangerous streets, navigating filthy alleys, walking through dank apartment buildings looking for their next hit or client or fuck. Voices from all directions, downright evil electronics, disturbed chanted lyrics, sinister thumping basslines, sampled saxophones that make a sound like you just came up snake-eyes, and scraping metallic sheets of guitar noise. Total tension... Absolute heavy atmosphere.

Of the four tracks here, they're all quite good but I think my favorite would probably be "Sensitive Skin". It sounds like a horror film, there's no other way to describe it... Other than maybe like Slint gone evil. But beyond that, it actually anticipates the post-rock stuff the band would be doing years from this point. The rest of the EP has an almost traditional punk rock sound in places, just with some weird post-punk flourishes.

It's a shame that Michael Gira appears to have no love for this EP; outside of being appended to a 1990 reissue of their album Filth, there's no CD release of it - including on the more recent reissues of Filth, which puts some demos instead and has long replaced the 'old' reissue, making that one difficult to find. Unless it was just gossip, I also heard that Gira sold the master tapes to this album on eBay recently, presumably to fund My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky. That's a lucky fan... It's weird, this EP doesn't get discussed much among fans but it's one of my favorite Swans releases. It just has a really interesting sound, and just because it's more traditional doesn't mean it's not as intense and atmospheric as any of their later stuff.

RATING: 4/5

Album Review: Flowering Blight - "The Perfect Pair" (2008)

Flowering Blight

The Perfect Pair

2008

Why the fuck haven't more people written about or listened to this? Damned crime, it is...

If you listened to anything Ministry released between 1988 and 2003 (which is considered their best period by most people who like heavy/dark music and aren't meatheads who think an overabundance of same-sounding wanky, repetitive speed-solos and redundant, childishly-written lyrics about the president are the only way for music to be good*) then you are probably familiar, at least in passing, with the name Paul Barker. He was credited as the only other 'official' member of Ministry-the-studio-band during that period, alongside frontman Al Jourgensen. He played bass, had a hand in writing most or all of the music, did a bunch of the electronics-work, and did lead vocals on a couple songs. He was also involved to an equally heavy extent in most of the side projects during that period doing the same type of stuff... Pailhead, Revolting Cocks, PTP, 1000 Homo DJs, and Lard. Also lent himself to stuff you'd expect of that era like Pigface, and had a pretty cool side project on WaxTrax with some dude from Stabbing Westward, called Lead into Gold.

*JUST KIDDING LOVE YOU ALL MWAH!

A lot of people don't like Ministry from before Barker joined (I do though) and people are also pretty divided on post-Barker stuff, and even some of the later stuff from when Barker was onboard gets a lot of hate (which I don't think it deserves) but most Ministry fans will agree that the best Ministry albums by far were ones Barker had heavy involvement in. Listening to this, it's easy to see why.

Flowering Blight is Barker's tragically little-known solo project. He gives us a nice, heavy sound without really even trying to be 'metal'. It sounds like a combination of the sounds of 'The Land of Rape and Honey', and bits of 'The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste', 'Dark Side of the Spoon' and 'Animositisomina' with an added healthy dose of post-punk gone horribly wrong (and I mean that in the most flattering of contexts) and a lessened focus on heavy metal elements in exchange for more heavily atmospheric stuff. Very apocalyptic sound. The composition is very refreshing as well, because it's more sweeping and large in scope compared with Ministry's much smaller-scale arrangements (not that it didn't work for them most of the time). The production is very thick and noisy and adds an extra layer of nastiness and darkness to everything. The bass sounds badass and everything has this great sinister, almost gothic feel. Wonderful crunchy guitar tones and all... Kind of reminds me of 'The Land of Rape and Honey''s production at times. There's this dusty, 'western' feel to the songwriting/production at times that I really enjoy as well. Paul's vocals are impressive as well - a lot of people seem to hate his voice but I just can't not like it. He sounds like a more refined, restrained Alice Cooper at times here.

As stated earlier, Barker is mostly solo here, but there are a nice group of guests appearing, including Josh Freese (Nine Inch Nails, Devo), Max Brody (Ministry), Paul Leary (Butthole Surfers), and others. Overall there is not a bad track on this album and I find myself listening to it constantly... Makes a very good soundtrack for Fallout. I find it really tragic that very few people have heard it, which I guess stems from the fact that the only place to get it is Barker's website, and it never gets advertised anywhere - music sites would rather pimp the latest cheaply-made covers album Al Jourgensen put out to get a few bucks, I guess. But I would say this is as good as just about anything Ministry ever put out. Do yourself a favor... Go get this album if you have any appreciation whatsoever for Barker-era Ministry and/or any of the side projects. I cannot stress enough how much this deserves to be heard by more people. So go. Give it a listen. Give Barker reason to make more music! We need it!

RATING: 4.5/5

Album Review: Gary Numan - "Tubeway Army" (1978)

Gary Numan

Tubeway Army

1978

Gary's first LP... Damned good for a debut. Here we see Gazza and the Tube-Tones take a step from their more straightforward punk rock origins for a more melodic and synth-heavy sound. They still bring the heaviness though, and create an excellent cyberpunkish sound (inspired in part by Bowie+Eno and the Krautrock classics) with the electronics and jagged guitars. Basically, this is (logically, but very tangibly) a stepping stone between the sound on The Plan and what Gary would embrace on Replicas.

Lyrical content is... All over the place. There's a song about emotional loneliness, some usual Numan cyber-noir fodder, a song about the right to die, a song about a gigolo, a song about jerking off... Like I said, all over the place.

The sound is fairly diverse. There's some excellent pre-industrial-rock stuff in songs like "Steel & You" and "My Shadow in Vain", and there's plenty of good old post-punk weirdness all around. The boys create a good mood and it's a testament to their playing and production skills that they were able to make an album with three guys on it sound so rich and thick, like there should be a lot more bodies in the studio playing instruments or adding synth textures. Paul Gardiner's excellent bass skills are of course a highlight, and some of the electronic textures hit a more cinematic and creative high than in many of Numan's later albums (possibly just because they're being complimented and reinforced more than usual by the guitar as well).

While I can't think of too much outright bad to say about the album, some of the songs do kind of run together - and they're not even bad songs. It's just too much of a good thing. This album was immediately and mercilessly topped by the similar-in-style Replicas a year later, but it's not necessarily obsolete. While I don't think I would recommend this as a starting point for anything, if you're interested in new wave, post-punk, industrial, or anything related to those, then I recommend you check this out at least once, if only for historical context.

RATING: 3.5/5