Review Summary: There's a name I forgot.
The newest incarnation of Swans has been fairly well-received, don’t you agree? Well sure, there are people that would've preferred it if Gira had called it quits back in the 90s or really hate Swans no matter the “era” they’re in. But barring these exceptions, fans and critics across the board seem to adore the run from 2012’s The Seer to 2016’s The Glowing Man. Excitement was rampant back when those revival-era records came out. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say they were bigger in the 2010s then then they were at any point in their career. Whether that’s justified, I’ll leave you to decide, but it’s undeniable that they had a lot of hype surrounding them.
So imagine my surprise when their follow-up to The Glowing Man was out and no one was talking about it.
Could it be because it was released after the strange limited-edition release, What Is This? I know that I was very put off from listening to that one, given how it was released with a hefty price tag under the guise of being “limited.” While it was released to finance this record, it probably didn't drum up a lot of interest for the album it was promoting. Bare folk numbers that were ultimately a bit dry. Now of course I know a demo isn't a completed product and is usually meant to showcase alternate takes or rough firsts of songs, but there have been plenty of instances where a demo was better than the completed studio version. But What Is This? brought the issues of the upcoming album to the forefront.
Leaving Meaning is very similar to those demos musically, with Swans opting to focus more on the folk and drone elements of their sound, while keeping the experimental rock around as merely a fail-safe; only to be used sparingly. Some might argue that past Swans records do the same thing, but it’s almost impossible to ignore on Leaving Meaning. Entire songs of what would be considered “buildup” on past albums clutter the tracklist to a debilitating degree. For the first time in a long time, finishing a Swans record feels like work.
From the opening notes of the droning “Hums,” any expectations listeners might have about the album are settled immediately. Leaving Meaning is heavily focused on ambiance, opting for slower tracks throughout. And while there are definitely tracks on the past 3 records that have a similar flair for the plodding (“When Will I Return?” off The Glowing Man and “Just A Little Boy” off To Be Kind come to mind), in addition to those being much better written and performed than most songs here, those tracks were capped with a burst of energy to make the admission price worth it. Whether it be a noisy rock blowout or some other interesting turn, it’s the payoff that makes the buildup forgivable. But Leaving Meaning often sounds like a prelude that never truly ends.
Aside from a few of its highlights, Leaving Meaning doesn’t seem to bother with things like payoffs; instead opting for long stretches of pleasant noise and not much else. Take “The Nub” for example, the album’s longest track. It follows a very similar formula to many of Swans’ longer tunes, even featuring vocals done by Jennifer Gira like on the aforementioned “When Will I Return?” But instead of switching things up like that song does, “The Nub” has a lot more in common with a single note being held for 12 minutes, ending on a phrase that’s all but a bit louder than how it began. More egregious are tracks like “It's Coming It's Real,” a strange gothic country number that’s enough to make you want to be put out to pasture. These folk and country elements the band plays with on this album work out exactly the way one might think they would (considering they made a poorly-received album in this vein already with The Burning World), and the result is very similar: decent at best, unexciting at worst.
All of that said, there are a few shining moments to be found here. “The Hanging Man” is definitely the A-side highlight, with a krautrock-influenced beat and a refreshingly-odd vocal performance by Gira. My favorite however was the post-punk stylings of “Some New Things.” Round of applause to the vibraphone player: perfectly meshing with the unsteady guitars and the repetitious vocals. But highlights like these are infrequent to say the least.
Perhaps I’m wrong about people not caring as much about Leaving Meaning as their other albums. Maybe it was just a slow start. Gira and co. still have a very large presence in the music world and will most likely continue to garner mild interest by long-time supporters and the ever-curious. Not every album has to speed to the finish line, surely. But if there was ever going to be a Swans album that crawls out of the gate on release, one that people will forget to mention in conversations years down the line, it would probably sound a lot like Leaving Meaning.
