Swans: The Seer – review

Swans' reputation arrives before them: the "loudest" or "heaviest" band in the world, with dark rumours of punishing gigs making audiences vomit. Their second album since reforming in 2010 after a 14-year hiatus won't quite so terrify the faint-hearted, but is certainly a challenge. Two hours long and containing songs lasting 30 minutes, it is loftily described by frontman Michael Gira as "the culmination of every other Swans album". Opener Lunacy ("Lunacy! Lunacy!") sounds like a witchcraft chant; Mother of the World repeats two notes over what sounds like a TV test tone. The marathon title track crashes like waves of heavy metal on to an industrial shore. Perseverance brings rewards: the haunting funk grind of The Seer Returns or the unusually pretty Karen O-sung Song for a Warrior, an ethereal country ballad. Gira's stated musical goals are "beauty and ecstasy", and both abound in the tinkling bells of the hypnotic Avatar, epic constructions of guitar and percussion, Gira's Lou Reedy singing in A Piece of the Sky or Can-like mantra The Apostate. The Seer won't be for everybody, but deserves to win new converts.