Michael Gira was a troubled man. Hardly a surprise, given the fact he had drug problems by the age of thirteen, was shunted between his alcoholic mother and his distant father, wandered across Europe until he ended up in an Israeli prison at the age of fifteen and eventually found his niche in music, making hugely influential records which nevertheless sold very little; so little in fact that he had to keep the day job for most of his music career.
Given the above, you can forgive the fact that
Swans aren't exactly disco-period Bee-Gees and are in fact a very 'dark' band, especially on their early releases.
Over time, however, they would incorporate such seemingly improbable aspects as acoustic instruments, melody, samples and one of the most distinctive female voices of the time and evolve into something different entirely. The shout was replaced by a croon and the chug was replaced with a swoon, reflecting the dual nature (violent / beautiful) of the creature that inspired their name in the first place.
So here are three (yes, three - and it took me a while to get down to that) examples of their recorded output from across their first spell of activity (they reformed a couple of years ago, though without key-member and aforementioned womanly-voiced Jarboe).
Cop / Young God
Strictly a compilation, but gives a good idea of Swans at their most crushing and unforgiving. Turn it up and never get a funny look from your neighbours again.
Children of God
In comes Jarboe, with melody aplenty to soften the brutality, but it's still there in spades. As in real garden implements. Which will hit you hard. In the face. There's added instrumentation and it sometimes falls close to the accursed territory marked 'goth', yet far enough away for me to listen without cringing and thinking of snakebite and black. The sound of a transition, and an interesting one at that.
Love Of Life
What's that? A Swans record with a vaguely positive title?
Yep, they've fully incorporated the stuff they were experimenting with on my previous choice, and Michael now croons rather than screaming his lungs out, though it's still kind of scary in a good way. There are actual love songs on this record, and I don't mean bitter ones but ones you could play to your partner (providing your partner has a taste for classic alternative rock) without them trying to get you sectioned. For the record I could easily exchange this for
The Burning World (even more listener-friendly) but this one just edges it because of 'Her', which is probably the most affecting thing they would commit to vinyl, and because it's more traditionally 'psychedelic'. You can smoke weed with this and not feel like a demon is in the room. I promise...
Again, as with Felt this is arbitrary to some extent - ask me tomorrow. Or don't.