Another exciting piece of history from one of The Big Apple's meanest, creepiest and uncompromising bands ever. As with the Various Failures triumph, 'Filth/Body to Body, Job to Job' collects material from one of the ba... more »nd's golden eras, a time when bands like Swans and their contemporaries such as Glenn Branca and Sonic Youth could barely get library cards, let alone featured on the covers of magazines to which they are accustomed today. Packaged in a deluxe embossed chipboard digipack with booklet. Young God Records.« less
Another exciting piece of history from one of The Big Apple's meanest, creepiest and uncompromising bands ever. As with the Various Failures triumph, 'Filth/Body to Body, Job to Job' collects material from one of the band's golden eras, a time when bands like Swans and their contemporaries such as Glenn Branca and Sonic Youth could barely get library cards, let alone featured on the covers of magazines to which they are accustomed today. Packaged in a deluxe embossed chipboard digipack with booklet. Young God Records.
CD Reviews
Blunt Force Trauma
Harry Tenench | Tx | 12/11/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Anyone familiar with this early outing from Swans will understand this review, any who are not familiar will not be able to imagine the bombast contained on this recording. It has to be heard and upon listening you will either never listen to it again or you will be hooked. No other band has ever or will ever make music this heavy and powerful - BUT it is not "Heavy Metal" music. Swans music completely sets bands like Korn , Metallica , Slipknot ,Pantera etc to the side . Strangely enough the feel of early Swans may be too brutal for fans of these type acts. In blues terms it would be kind of like trying to compare John Mayer to Son House - one is an architect and one is a consumer product.
Michael Gira is the master architect behind Swans and has always had a gift for conveying authentic raw emotion through music. From what I can gather about Gira he sets out to create sounds that he would like to hear in music and he utilizes a great deal of artistic prowess and psychological content , he does not like to commit his ideas to too much meaning or ego which I find refreshing. He does however seem to have a drive to create and move on to the next thing , basically challenging himself to continually break new ground . Swans have been through about 5 phases and successfully morphed into a logical progressive sound each time until disbanded . Gira continues to make some of his best music ever under his new Angels of Light squad, which has a varied line up on each of their 3 outstanding releases : New Mother , How I Loved You , and Everything is Good Here , Please Come Home. Check these out if you want to hear something truly unique.
Back to Filth & Body to Body , Job to Job. Filth is the first Swans release to my knowledge and it has been reissued here along with BTB JTJ , which are a collection of live and rare recordings , some from their "COP" release . Each cut on Filth is a ritualistic , pounding release of emotion . There is nothing formula here , this is true originality. There are no neo-Bach lead guitar solos or any other tripe you hear in heavy metal music. The time signatures here are mid to low tempo and are very uncommon in any type of music, however everything is delivered with a force that cannot be ignored. Norm Westerberg's contorted mixture of power chords and harmonics make for a guitar sound unlike most. The drums are very well produced and powerful throughout the recording . One of the signature features of Swans early music is the use of repititon and a committed attack that each player offers , almost like getting a car door slammed on your head. The vocals are no different , mainly commands and one word statements delivered in a howl of disoreintation. There is a lot of rage here but not in a commercial way , it is in a truly unsettling yet captivating way. That is because the squad is playing honestly and not trying to cater to a pre-established musical niche.
If you want to hear something heavy that is not just more consumer product check this pair of disks out . If you can make it through both disks then you must understand what the artists were doing , if you don't make it through you will remember how you felt listening to a few songs for a long time.
Don't let the teeth scare you away! Peace"
'Flex Your Muscles'
Phoust | London, England | 01/14/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Swans could only have come from New York, no other city other than Berlin could have produced such a glorious cacophony of unrelenting brutality. For me Swans rests somewhere between real industrial (not 90s industrial metal) and noise-rock. Their only peers would have been Glenn Branca, The Butthole Surfers, early Sonic Youth (who were more song based) and Einsturzende Neubauten. On `Filth' they use repetition to exhilarating effect slowing everything down to a virtual crawl. It's difficult to describe this album but know one thing: nothing produced before or after it can match it in the brutality stakes. Like a wrecking ball it demolishes your weak mind while never overstaying it's welcome. This release also includes plenty live material as a bonus, which is where one can really feel the power and beauty in their destruction. `Filth' is as the title would suggest an ugly beast of an album that will beat you and leave you paralysed on floor simply because it can. This release in particular is one of my favourite albums of all time and life without it would be incomplete. Strong medicine indeed and highly recommended. Swans were in my opinion one of the greatest bands ever."
Throught the past darkly
livesidog | Lancaster, PA USA | 05/09/2000
(4 out of 5 stars)
"This 2cd set, the latest in a series of Swans reissues, documents the earliest period of this amazing band's diverse history. Over the more than 15 years of their existance, the Swans explored a large variety of musical styles. The material presented in this reissue (most of which has been out of print and unavailable for years) is extremely harsh and visceral. Some may categorize this as punk or early hardcore, but the Swans were never really a part of either movement. In fact, most fans of hardcore and punk music would probably find this music to be too slow and repetitive. This is challenging music, but definitely rewarding. Songs on Filth like "Stay Here", "Power for Power" and "Weakling" convey a deep sennse of anger and desolation. The Filth disc is definitely the most rewarding of this set, as the material on Body to Body consists mostly of studio demos, experiments and live tracks (then again, to the collector, material like this is extremely valuable). As a bonus, a live show recorded in 1982 is included in the set (at the end of the Filth disc). This live material is even more visceral and challenging than the studio versions, but it provides an excellent window into the Swans past. Those wishing to get into the Swans would probably be better off checking out their later material like Various Failures or Soundtracks for the Blind, but this set is highly recommended for Swans fans interested in how this intriguing band started out."
Be Strong. Be Hard. Be Angry.
Jonathan Dedward | Nowheresville, Slothwestern North America | 09/28/2008
(3 out of 5 stars)
"Most people, I think, would find unfathomable the very notion of releasing a collection of music as impossibly dour, humorless and grating as Filth. Hopefully New York's Swans have little interest in achieving popularity on the Top 50 charts, because nothing from this album could ever be accepted as 'good music' by your average Joe-FM Jockey. And who can blame him? The entire album seems like some kind of mean spirited drunken mess.
The first (and most accessible) track of Filth lumbers along with a bass-line like an inebriated dance beat, swaying off kilter in slow motion; while a singer who obviously is some kind of bull-horned hairy man-beast brutishly barks things like, "Be Strong! Be Hard!" over and over again until one gets the impression that the insecure creature fears it is neither. After the first track falls awkwardly on the coffee table and blacks out, things start to get really out of control. The band seems to abhor rhythm only slightly less than it does melody, because both are rather scarce in this misanthropic recording. Songs either stomp around angrily, like some kind of red-faced troglodyte, ranting or lamenting one thing or another, or, as with "Freak," devolve completely into primordial soupiness, a cacophony which envisions musicians not playing instruments so much as simply punching them. It's a pretty unusual style: Gothic metal which is neither Gothic (no fay romanticism to leaven the depressive qualities, and too unmelodious) nor metal (too repetitive and arrhythmical). Filth ends with a hazy sounding set of concert recordings, which pummel the ears even harder without the clarity of the studio recording humanizing the proceeding.
"Filth: the cd" also offers a sequel disc. Body to Body, Job to Job is a compilation, not a proper album, of tracks recorded before and after Filth was officially released. The sound is a continuation of Filth's fury however and offers no relief from the blunt-force trauma headphone users doubtlessly suffered while listening to the first disc. Some are rough, live cuts of dubious engineering quality, and others are clear studio recordings of dubious moral motivation. Songs like "I'll Cry for You" and "Mother, My Body Disgusts Me" are every bit as demented as on the main album, and good for scaring little old ladies.
It's all rather Lo-fi, and while certainly aggressive (an album that would probably rough you up in a back alley just for the hell of it) the production seems to tone down the ferocious bellowing of the singer, burying in deep rumbling noise. The effect is rather like Martin Hannett's production for the band Joy Division. In fact, technically and thematically the music here is strongly reminiscent of Joy Division. Just a hell of a lot meaner.
I honestly can't imagine anyone calling this their absolute all-time favorite album, but frankly, for all of it's rejection of musical standards, there is something strongly compelling about Filth by Swans. Most people will be put off and annoyed by it, but as Amazon.com shows, a number of people also think it's pretty great. So maybe these Swans characters are on to something. Despite the fact that he still has his pretty little pop-icons, catchy songs, his teeth and his sanity, maybe Joe-FM Jockey is the one who is missing out. I for one am am going to dab my bleeding ears while looking forward to what the band releases next!
"
"Aggressive beyond words...."
Bennett Cain | Toledo, OH | 05/30/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"is how Filth was described by a prominent reviewer when it came out in 1982. This is the most utterly brutal, punishing music I've ever heard. At the time, there was nothing quite like it though there have since been many attempts to emulate the sound (most notably Helmet and early Neurosis). A great album from a great band. The other disc, Body to Body is insanely good too, PURE EVIL unfiltered hatred and loathing. The thing to keep in mind about the early work of SWANS is that it isn't necessarily an endorsement or celebration of negativity but rather a statement about it and maybe even an attempt to exorcise it through the cathartic effects of the music."
Track Listings (27) - Disc #1