74.

Yellow Swans
At All Ends
(Load, 2007)

At All Ends was a revelatory moment for me. It marked the first time I was ever able to describe the Yellow Swans’ music as beautiful. Of course, that’s pretty subjective. I’m positive there are plenty of people who would haughtily disagree with that assessment. But the transition was clear; At All Ends (in addition to all the cassettes and CDrs released around the same period from the band) was something different. A whole new direction for the band and, indeed, a high water mark. The industrial noisiness wasn’t gone, just honed into some lucid, beautiful sandstorm of sound. Perhaps it was this epiphany of evolution that led the band to pack up shop, knowing that they had finally achieved something of supremely transformative power.

-Thistle