Search - Swans :: Feel Good Now

Music from another time

drumb | milwaukee, wi United States | 01/01/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Feel Good Now. The very name of the album is a command, and that's exactly what the Swans do. When the Swans storm the stage in all their raw, gothic glory, they don't just play music; they command the music, harnessing a vast arsenal of pure guitar energy and oppressively dense rhythms to force the audience into deaf submission. Sounding like a hellish amalgamation of Joy Division and Flipper, The Swans exhume lost sounds from another time that are truly primordial and earth shattering in their overwhelmingly mundane, militaristic rage. The music itself transcends any possible categorization, taking on a life of its own as it breathes and writhes suspended above the heads of the aghast audience. Culling feelings of hatred, anger, despair, and angst from the depths of the planet, Feel Good Now is the larger than life manifestation of all of our darkest emotions and most vile desires put on display before us. However, while the pure fury of the album inevitably leads to music that contains unparalleled violence, the heightened emotional potency of the album also gives it an equally beautiful and serene element of release that shows anger as an integral, vital emotion that should be harnessed, not suppressed. Anger is perhaps the only word strong enough and encompassing enough to fully describe the sound that is The Swans because to refer to this music as nothing more than music would be ignorant; Feel Good Now is pure emotion. Like their obvious predecessors, the legendary MC5, a live album is simply the only way to contain their immense sound and Feel Good Now perfectly captures the Swans at the height of their powers making an already lengthy album of 75 minutes feel like nearly 3 hours of intense pummeling feedback. The Swans sound is timeless and their unique culmination of pre-modern forces paint them as one of the most profound and powerful groups to emerge in the last century. Like I said before, The Swans don't just play music, they breathe and radiate it, and when Micheal Gira roars "God is Mine" in his best Tom Waits growl, you believe him."

SWANS at their best

Christian Bonner | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania United States | 07/31/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These days when I hear about all the countless supposedly "dark" and "intense" nu-metal bands, I listen to Feel Good Now and just laugh. Swans were brutal, bludgeoning, pummeling,uncompromising....and somehow beautiful at the same time. Most of all, they were REAL. This album is a prime example of Swans in all their glory, and makes more modern bands like (scoff) Linkin Park and (gag) Staind sound about as dark and intense as N'Sync or Jessica Simpson."

Gira and co. crumble entire cities

curlywombat | Pearl River, NY United States | 06/27/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"this absolutely huge, plodding, terrifying music. by all means place cotton balls in your ears, just dont get surprised when you remove them and theyre soaked in blood."