Swans
The Beggar

Ever since it was announced months ago, I've been living a half-life: one normal, the other in perpetual anticipation, counting minutes, seconds, moments, that separated me from the fateful June 23rd, the release day when I would savor, once again and finally, a new album from one of my desert island bands.

Disappointment, this is the first feeling that penetrated my soul at the very first listen: my biggest fear, that of softening, of the total abandonment of that exasperated maximalism which delivered a trilogy of albums to be counted among rock masterpieces, and beyond, of the new millennium, had become a reality, starting quietly from the previous, minor, Leaving Meaning, where a return to folk sounds was noted, already extensively expressed in the albums under the name Angels of Light.

But, and there is a but, unlike the aforementioned predecessor, which had initially thrilled me only to drastically fade with subsequent listens, this brand new The Beggar is doing the exact opposite, it's clutching at the heart, slowly, with poisoned and sharp coils that leave deep scars and never go away: as the record progresses, I am sucked into a familiar sea, that of albums like Children of God, White Light..., The Great Annihilator, and that is that oblique way of thinking about folk rock, pierced by an overarching sense of defeat and a creeping blackness that pollutes everything, yet at the same time shines with new light, new life force, updated, magnificently adapted to our days and not heralding any sort of nostalgia operation, thanks to tracks that verge on perfection, being perfectly balanced between melody and experimentalism, between nocturnal singer-songwriting, folk (apocalyptic?), avant-garde.

I mention only the tour de force of the semi Title Track: 44 minutes of sensory expansion, of sonic collages like those not heard since their immense Soundtrack for the Blind, of devastated post-rock, crossed by droning winds, voices rising to the sky, annihilating voids, frenzied drums, and chanting mantras that glue you to the ground, simply all of Michael Gira's poetry, enclosed in this album within the album (because that's what it is).

There is nothing more to say but "thank you," once again, after 40 years of career, after simply crazy records, still there, not compromising, making music, a music that is among the most piercing and penetrating I have ever heard.

The Beggar feels so much, too much, like a farewell, which I hope remains just a sensation, because when they are no more, the whole world of rock will be irreparably emptier and more insignificant.