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

Yellow Swans - Drowner Yellow Swans

Yellow Swans
Drowner Yellow Swans
(2007, Tape Room)
Verdict = The Most Glorious Noise

Anyone who regularly reads this music blog will already be familiar with my absolute adoration of the Yellow Swans most recent releases (At All Ends, Descension EP). Well, with Drowner Yellow Swans (which was also released last year) I think it is pretty safe to say that 2007 was the year of Yellow Swans. I don’t think I have heard more assured, glorious “noise” records than the ones that these north westerners have been peddling as of late. I am going to stop applying the cop-out application noise here – what the Yellow Swans have accomplished is as organic and moving compositionally as anything else that’s hit the streets. Simple, crushing devastation married to blissfully ascending beauty and in all its permutations, whether through At All Ends, Descension or here on Drowner, the albums seem to be endlessly rewarding. They are all so incredible and, as I’m sure it is with children, almost impossible to choose a favourite. Well, not knowing the experience of having kids yet, if I had to recommend one album amongst the group Drowner Yellow Swans would be it. Released on cassette tape and CDR through Tape Room, Drowner Yellow Swans edges out the pack with more tracks, a longer running time and an even wider breadth via the Swans’ signature, grueling gorgeousness. The grit is intact, the guitars shimmering, the electronics bubbling, the specters and haunts have been meticulously engrained in the tape and the indescribable, pummeling weight of the Yellow Swans are all here. I’m already exasperated; this is the type of amazingness that is impossible to put into words. If there is one Yellow Swans record to get, this is it. I promise it won’t be your last. Mom, if you are reading this, that last statement may not apply to you, but then again who knows? It’s that good.

-Mr. Thistle

Yellow Swans' Myspace

Yellow Swans - Descension

Yellow Swans
Descension
(05.2007, Acuarela)
9.0/10

The first time I ever listened to Yellow Swans was when they opened for Xiu Xiu at Kilby Court in 05'. The set was so loud and abrasive that I listened in the court yard, sparing the ears of a then budding love interest. In conversation she described the sound billowing out of the venue as conjuring “a thousands ghosts on a train.” While I felt that the coarseness of their earlier sound required the specification of demons rather than ghosts, I thought the term was terrific. Now, a couple years later, I feel like Yellow Swans finally embody that statement. Gone are the demons, remaining are thousands of ghosts, not necessarily ill begotten, but still breathing a cacophonous moan as passengers reeling along the screeching of an ancient train track. Descension, released earlier this year, is a pair of long form live recordings that are exactly what I thought would really be the outcome of “a thousand ghosts on a train.” As the opener to their fabulous full length release At All Ends, Descension takes steps to upstage the main event. Totaling just under a half hour, the tracks dive head long into the most jarringly beautiful recreation of a spectral despair magnified and layered a thousand times over. A must for fans of experimental noise music.

-Mr. Thistle

Descension on Boomkat

Yellow Swans - At All End

Yellow Swans
At All End
(10.2007, Load)
9.5/10

Beauty is not usually the first word associated with guttural noise produced by Yellow Swans. Last year's Psychic Secessions saw the band careening through extended blasts of distortion heavy industrial electronics that must have been the envy of their contemporaries. Yet even with a long history of setting polluted gristle to tape and clearing rooms playing it live, Yellow Swans' latest Load Records release, At All Ends, is actually...pretty. Now I need to insert a qualifier here: this is the Yellow Swans. Nevertheless, gone are the deep guttural growls and screeching electronic squabbles of previous albums. The beauty Yellow Swans have made here is buried deep with deafening walls of multiple layers of distorted guitar, beauty that is waterlogged in trenches of feedback. At All Ends contains a deafening grandeur whose terrible magnificence spreads ominously throughout its pieces. The album spans five tracks, each a heavy sheet of glacial gorgeousness. Each sings sorrowfully like a glorious sea liner sinking into frozen waters, inch by inch, to the horror of its passangers. A definite shocker, Yellow Swans have produced one of the great surprises of 2007 and marked themselves as one of the most dynamic groups on the modern experimental noise-scape. At All Ends is a revelation of gorged heaviness that sparkles with undeniable heart; a work of intense depth and beauty.

-Mr. Thistle

Yellow Swans - "Our Oases"