Swans - The Beggar (2LP)

Swans have never done comfort. Even in their gentlest moments there is a prickle under the skin, a sense that something far larger is moving in the room. The Beggar, released 23 June 2023 on Michael Gira’s Young God Records, leans into that feeling with a slow, mesmeric patience. It nudges rather than bludgeons, and still ends up as heavy as anything in the catalogue because the weight comes from time, repetition and the human voice pushing itself against the void.

The record opens its world with “Paradise Is Mine,” a march built on a low, organ-like drone and a bass pulse that feels like a lighthouse beacon in fog. Gira mutters and intones rather than belts, but the authority is there. Swans spent the 2010s rewriting the rules for long-form rock on albums like The Seer and To Be Kind, and this track plants a flag back in that terrain, only with less scorched earth and more ritual. When the guitars flare, they flash like heat lightning on the horizon. It is tense and oddly tender at once.

“Los Angeles: City of Death” is the closest thing here to a singalong, at least in Swans terms. It moves with a ragged saunter and a chorus that lodges in the head. The lyrics poke at dread in a way that feels of the moment, but the arrangement is classic late-era Swans, all steady momentum and little explosions of colour from lap steel and percussion. The title track is a beauty, too, starting in a hush that suggests a lullaby, then building into a teeming prayer. You do not so much hear these songs as sit in them. They reward a full side of attention, the way good Swans vinyl always has.

Production is spare and tactile. Gira produces, as usual, keeping the sound open so the voices and small details cut through. Long-time hands Kristof Hahn and Phil Puleo bring texture and grip, and there is that familiar Swans trick where a simple pattern cycles so long it starts to tilt the floor under you. You might expect the old brute force, but the power here has more to do with trance and accrual. Play it loud and the room reshapes itself.

A big talking point is “The Beggar Lover (Three),” a forty-odd minute companion piece that comes with the digital and CD editions and was left off The Beggar vinyl for obvious time reasons. It feels like a cousin to Soundtracks for the Blind, a roving collage of narration, noise, and drifting song forms that stitches the whole album’s mood into one fever dream. When it snaps into focus, it is thrilling. When it wanders, it still deepens the spell. If you are crate-digging for Swans albums on vinyl, grab the LP for the core sequence and stream the companion in full. Together they tell a bigger story.

There is a bit of backstory worth noting. These songs grew out of the Is There Really A Mind? demo collection that Gira issued to fund the sessions, part of the band’s ongoing, very direct relationship with its audience. That sense of community hangs over the finished record. It is the work of lifers who trust repetition, trust silence, and trust their own strange compass. Critics caught on quickly, with thoughtful reviews across places like The Guardian, The Quietus and Pitchfork, and fans have been treating the live versions like secular hymns.

For listeners who came in during the thunder of the 2010s, The Beggar might first feel restrained. Give it time. The push and pull here is exacting. Small choices land hard. A tambourine jitter. A harmony that brushes the melody like a bird against a window. Gira’s voice has aged into a cracked baritone that carries both sermon and confession, and the songs hold that tension without releasing it. It is not a sprawl for its own sake. It is a ritual you sit with.

If you are hunting The Beggar vinyl in a Melbourne record store, you will know what to do. Pick it up, feel the heft, then plan a night in with the lights low. And if you prefer to buy Swans records online, you will have no trouble finding an edition that suits, since this one has been pressed widely and sits neatly alongside other Swans vinyl on the shelf. However you get there, this is a late-career peak from an artist who keeps refusing to repeat himself. It is demanding in the best way, and in a year’s time you may find it has quietly become a favourite among the vinyl records Australia crowd.