Review Summary: Swans at their most unforgiving.
To maintain your relevancy for thirty years is difficult enough for any band. But to regain your relevancy after 15 years away is an almost unique feat of resurrection. Swans, the vessel of Michael Gira, have returned with their third studio release since reforming, and sound as vital and as fierce as ever. However, although this album catches Swans at their most unforgiving, it also catches them at their most one dimensional.
To Be Kind is rammed full of stinking great grooves, bass riffs, fantastic production and droning mantras. Unfortunately, it is slightly lacking in melody. You'd think that in the two hour running time they could find space for one or two contrasting numbers. The type of moments of quiet but undeniable beauty that were hidden away between the droning and the feedback on 2012's The Seer. Gira's ear for writing a melody that sounded instantly timeless, in an dusty desert americana cast-off sort of way, was unparalleled on that effort, but here it is dispensed with entirely.
That's not necessarily, I suppose, a critisicism. Swans are renowned for being brutal and relentless, and they've certainly perfected that aspect of their sound. They have pushed punishment to the limit. A Little God in my Hands is seven minutes of pure drone-funk, overlaid with screeching walls of synthetic noise. The album centrepiece Bring the Sun/Toussaint L'Ouverture is exultant and undeniable. Just A Little Boy is possibly the best song Swans have ever recorded. It builds from a distant, slowly loping groove into ragged wails of feedback and slide guitar that enter into a conversation with Gira's demented performance on the microphone. He shouts into the abyss: "I'm just a little boy!" and the universe's response is canned laughter, filling the stereo field and sending dopamine shivers straight down your spine.
Recognition should also be given to the performance of the band, laughing at the notion that Swans are only about Gira. In particular, drummer Phil Puleo and percussionist/handyman Thor Harris shine, constantly rearranging the album's grooves to hold your interest even over the ten minute songs.
To Be Kind is another fantastic Swans album, and it show a band that, thirty years since their inception, appear to be only getting better. It's just a slight shame that they didn't do more to justify two solid hours of punishment.
