Love of Life

Buoyed by the critical success of "White Light From the Mouth of Infinity' and clearly reveling in having control over his music through his own record label, Michael Gira's Swans delivered arguably their most confident-sounding album in 1992's `Love of Life'.

The briefest of samples precedes the arrival of the title track with its pounding drums and hypnotic rhythm. It is followed by `The Golden Boy That Was Swallowed By The Sea' which combines spiritual lyrics with a beautiful, expansive melody.

The sound throughout the record reminds me a little of `The Burning World's' eastern influences but amplified hugely with more emphasis on rock guitars. Fascinating snippets of sound and vocal samples, untitled in the track listing, pepper the album adding to its atmosphere wonderfully and also indicating how the band sounded live in this period (I was lucky enough to see them play in London in 1992).

Songs like `Golden Boy..', `The Other Side of The World' and `In the Eyes of Nature' are big-sounding enough to be stadium anthems in some parallel universe where the majority appreciates intelligent rock music, but Gira also demonstrates that he has not lost his famous intensity of artistic expression in the pounding, doom-laden `Amensia' and the bitterly beautiful `God Loves America'.

Self-produced by Gira, the balance of sound is perfect between power and melodic beauty. This record still sounds thrilling 15 years after its release and I love it just as much now as then. Highly recommended.

This 1992 album appeared right in the middle of the legendary band's most productive period. The release of Children of God in 1987 marked a new direction for Gira & co. The works that followed were all special or extraordinary in some way or another. Burning World of 1989 was their melodious überfolk excursion; Ten Songs for Another World of 1990 by side-project World of Skin perfected their take on the torch song whilst on the next year's White Light from the Mouth of Infinity they had found the ideal blend of rock & torch.

Compared to the aforementioned, Love of Life is a work of pure power rock. There are beautiful ballads like The Golden Boy that was Swallowed by the Sea, The Other Side of the World & No Cure for the Lonely as well as atmospheric pieces like Her and Identity but the most prominent songs are the fast-tempo title track, enthused with the defiant exuberance of pounding drums & propulsive rhythms, The Sound of Freedom which is the most formidable marriage of rock & poetry since Patti Smith, as well as Amnesia & In The Eyes of Nature.

Michael gives a tender treatment to The Golden Boy That Was Swallowed By The Sea with its soulful lyrics and addictive tune, making it probably one of their most appealing and accessible songs ever. Track number 5 is an instrumental with a recorded male voice talking about hunting & shooting deer; yes it may appear odd in this company but in fact it fits & enhances the mood in some inexplicable way. Next it's Jarboe turn on a ballad, the magical and melodious The Other Side of the World.

In places the sound reminds me somewhat of The Burning World's eastern influences but amplified hugely with more emphasis on rock guitars & drums. Fascinating snippets of sound and vocal samples, especially on the untitled tracks 1, 4, 5, 9, 12 & 16 add to the mood, but the first of two outstanding experimental atmospheric tracks is titled Her. Michael's dreamy lullaby-like introductory singing is followed by a harsh & intrusive rock interlude that suddenly gives way to the voice of a teenage girl talking about summer, her boyfriend Charlie, the Atlanta International & Monterrey pop festivals, musicians like Janis Joplin, The Who and The Grateful Dead, with radio commercials from 1967 and static noise in the background. This version is not the same as the one on the live album Omniscience.

The second rock masterpiece, The Sound of Freedom, was inexplicably excluded from the Various Failures 1988-1992 compilation, so this will be its eternal resting place. A mid-tempo rock song, it has some of the majesty of The Most Unfortunate Lie from White Light from the Mouth of Infinity and some of the urgency of this album's title track, plus a powerful hypnotic momentum & enigmatic but haunting imagery with a spiritual undertone.

The rock song Amnesia is followed by another slice of weirdness called Identity. According to the sleeve notes the narrator is Adam Jankowski; he's still a child here, reciting the sublime symbolism & mesmeric metaphors of this metaphysical poem over a melodic mid-tempo backing track with humming voices and the occasional tortured word or phrase by a heavily distorted male vocal. The spooky tone suggests a séance or some sort of attempt to communicate from realms unknown. Scary stuff indeed, calling to mind the uncanny children's voices in The Most Unfortunate Lie and the films Badlands & Deep Red [1975].

Jarboe gently breathes life into the mid-tempo gem She Cries (For Spider), setting in motion a chain of voices on this enchanting rock ballad so exquisitely arranged upon layered, overlapping & multitracked vocals that weave a magical matrix as they harmonically resonate while multiplying. Then one hears Michael in pensive mood on the slow and introspective God loves America, after which Jarboe tries with gentle reassurances to soothe some species of animal that makes a range of hair-rising sounds - from twittering to human-like wails - over a jittery percussive background.

Michael concludes the album with the achingly beautiful acoustic number No Cure for the Lonely of which the theme encompasses subjects as diverse as romantic love, guilt, relationships, the atomizing desire so eloquently expressed by that Scandinavian actress who said: "I vunt to be alone," disgust towards religious claims of absolute certainty & writings that restrict the mind, both of them suffocating burdens feeding a disillusionment that sinks to ever deeper levels as people perceive themselves trapped in cyclical time & action.

This is what Dylan meant in the words of Every Grain of Sand: "Don't have the inclination to look back on any mistake/Like Cain I now behold this chain of events that I must break." Thus it ends on a melancholy but human note, unlike Gira's disturbing 1995 solo album with its overt malevolence. I prefer the honest expression of frailty & fragility so this vulnerable Gira on No Cure for the Lonely means more & matters much more than all the Drainlands, Body Lovers & Haters put together. Spiritually downcast, drained & desolate but human still, thus silently, invisibly & unknowingly embraced by the Everlasting Arms. Mercifully Angels of Light, Gira's post-Swans project, took this musical direction.