Available on: My Father Will Guide Me up a Rope to the Sky, forthcoming Young God LP

If you’ve ever read about Swans, then you probably know that Michael Gira, the New York band’s leader, has a history of not fucking about. Age subdues some, but I saw Gira play live a few years back, supporting Boredoms, and he gave hands down the most aggressive, powerful performance I’ve ever seen from one man and an acoustic guitar. His naked voice travelled as far as any crescendo from Boredoms’ circle of amps and drums, each syllable accompanied by piercing eyes and a flurry of spit. If there’s one man I believe when he says that a reformation – in this case his own Swans, who will release their first album for fourteen years later this year – isn’t done for the money, it’s Michael Gira.

The second stage of Swans’ career, let’s say from ’88 to ’96, was characterised by a butterfly from chrysalis-esque movement away from scuzzy industrial and towards grand, Joy Division-inspired pop. ‘Eden Prison’, the first track to emerge from said new Swans album, sits pretty neatly between the two. The opening chords are reminiscent of ‘90s Swans cuts like ‘Failure’ and ‘Love of Life’, but with the focus on drone and pounding repetition that you’d associate with their less accessible ‘80s material – Gira’s backing here consists of one riff beating on and on, and when it subsides, you assume for some sort of ascent into the clouds, it’s simply replaced by a slower, harder one. And of course, the man himself sounds like he hasn’t missed a step since the last Swans album. Remarkable stuff.

Tom Lea