Swans – Children Of God (1987)

April 23, 2023
Swans – Children Of God (1987)

Swans are one of those special bands that sound completely different on each record. The early stuff is some of the hardest music you can possibly want to hear. You could also argue that the sound began thawing on Holy Money or Greed, albums that came before this, but the way I see that instead is that the band added more elements to their work, rather than stripping back their work. Children Of God was however, IMO, the time where Swans finally took their foot off the Brutality pedal, if only just a little.

The band has also done cleanly-produced before COG, but here it is stepped up even further. The sound is bigger, making Swans’ dirging, repetitve drones sound almost like anthemic bangers. Nowhere is this more apparent than opening track “New Mind”, which is far catchier than it deserves to be. The full-band sound comes to an abrupt stop however, with some Jarboe-fronted piano pieces as well as some gentler tunes featuring the full group. The shifting focus to these kinds of compositions featuring so heavily in the whole of the work is, to me, the important element in how Children Of God changed the trajectory of Swans going into the next decade. Not that immense, all-encompassing, and stupidly heavy songs like “Sex, God, Sex” or “Beautiful Child” would have you think Swans were reigning it all in a bit.

Essential listening for fans of heavy music.

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