Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky

Swans
My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky
(2010, Young God)
RIYL = Angels of Light, Evangelista

Oh Michael Gira, you dog! Resurrecting Swans, dehydrated, out of the apocalyptic dust. Can we not sit up straight and stare wet-eyed into the oncoming train lights, like a freshly noosed victim slung swinging in front of the tunnel entrance, dangling just feet above the tracks, choking and that blaring horn, that incessant chugga chugga, the rhythmic pulse growing louder, spelling out our ultimate end, as if the rope wasn’t tight enough around our necks? It spells a beautiful collision, for sure. And, as far as resurrected bands go (if Mr. Gira will allow me to describe Swans as such), this one’s a growling mess of doom and destruction – the way it should be. I’ve been a bit more of an Angels of Light fan myself, having mostly missed the heyday of Swans (unless we can rightfully describe today as that heyday, which is certainly arguable with My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky) but this here record is perhaps the album which tips the scales in the other direction with all the mussy tangles of Gira injected with an added umph of looming destruction (added, of course, to the already present destructive tendencies that Mr. Gira always maintains). What more can be said? This is dust-ridden doom-slop-country at its finest and most frighteningly angelic (albeit the angel of death). What a corrupted ride! What a fantastic execution! What a beautiful, soaring wall of grit and sand and wind and ghosts! Oh Michael Gira, you dog - one of the very best of the new decade!

-Thistle