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10.0
87836
10.0 |
The Arts Desk
It's not just the most impressive album of this particular self-proclaimed 'iteration' of Swans, but their best to date
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9.1
88098
9.1 |
Pretty Much Amazing
The best sendoff the band could have possibly given themselves
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8.3
87926
8.3 |
A.V. Club
If The Glowing Man and its recent expansive—and invitingly difficult—predecessors have proven anything, it’s that Gira’s mission is to be boundary-less
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8.3
87938
8.3 |
Consequence Of Sound
This incarnation of the band and their records have been as much of a spiritual journey for the band as it was for listeners, and in that leveling of artist and observer, there can be found a sort of peace and thankfulness
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8.2
88392
8.2 |
Earbuddy
The choices made here feel more self-conscious than before. The Seer and To Be Kind almost felt like they weren’t written at all, but rather, unearthed out of some crypt, perhaps buried by a doomsday cult or a Lovecraftian horror. The Glowing Man, however, feels written and measured
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8.1
88008
8.1 |
Pitchfork
Swans close their current chapter on a subdued but powerful note
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8.0
88010
8.0 |
The Line Of Best Fit
We’re left with yet another cathartic artefact that, whilst perhaps shrinking in the shadow of what came before, bookends the latest metamorphosis of a band whose next form is anyone’s guess
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8.0
88045
8.0 |
Spin
Music that’s as intoxicating as it is intense
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8.0
88060
8.0 |
Gig Soup
On disc-two, Swans produce what is arguably their finest hour of music
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8.0
87942
8.0 |
Spectrum Culture
It is safe to say that this is the best, most ambitious formation of the band ever assembled
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8.0
87832
8.0 |
The Music
Panoramic epics and brutal crescendos
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8.0
87835
8.0 |
Slant Magazine
Clocking in at nearly two hours, the album is a chock-a-block song cycle stuffed with concepts, textures, and ideas
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8.0
87838
8.0 |
All Music
Another exhilarating portal into the unknown
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8.0
87849
8.0 |
Uncut
If Swans are the sound of love, it is not a love everyone will recognise
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8.0
87850
8.0 |
Mojo
These tracks chose to morph and mutate rather than petrify in any sense. Print edition only
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8.0
88119
8.0 |
The FT
For all its formidable length, the music demands our attention with its swells in volume and shifts in focus
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8.0
88923
8.0 |
Clash
The world’s loudest band bow out (for now at least) in the grandest and most welcome fashion
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7.0
87861
7.0 |
Drowned In Sound
It is – if you like – the final part of a trilogy charting the transcendent power of sound and its hold over one undeniably extraordinary musician
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7.0
87947
7.0 |
Exclaim
Fans of the band will enjoy the mature and practiced sound of this very good album, but the unconvinced might remain so, as the band don't exactly reinvent the wheel
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7.0
87997
7.0 |
The Quietus
All of this exorcism and meditation has come to something, even if it’s not true transcendence
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6.6
88025
6.6 |
Paste Magazine
A record that’s as uncompromising as Swans’ best work from this era, but hardly as essential
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6.5
88015
6.5 |
Under The Radar
He killed the first version of the band after it exhausted its potential in 1997; he likely had that feeling again before completing The Glowing Man
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6.0
87935
6.0 |
Tiny Mix Tapes
Gira is putting this current incarnation of Swans to rest after six years, because quite irrespective of his virtue as a human being, the band’s music has become a little less virtuous
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6.0
88582
6.0 |
Rolling Stone
While their long, drawn-out, circling dark clouds remain potent, ultimately The Glowing Man is the weakest of the three powerful epics they've released since 2012
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