Swans – Filth (1983)

September 1, 2015

LINES IN WAX 500th POST EXTRAVAGANZA!

Who in their right mind would have thought I could write 500 album reviews? Actually who in their right mind would write 500 album reviews? Well the answer is little old me. As Lines In Wax passes it’s 4th birthday, we also reach this milestone in posting. As with the 100th and 250th post, I would like to quickly thank everyone for their continued support and readership. Without your disapproving eyes, I’d be writing for myself and a few Google bots, which is an even sadder existence than the one I’m leading now. In celebration of the 500 milestone, I have decided to “review” one of my absolute all time favourite records. Here’s to another 500 posts!

Swans are my favourite band in the entire universe (outside of grindcore). They have a long and meandering career spanning 4 decades, numerous genres, 13 studio albums and an obscene amount of other releases. The most savage of the bunch has to be Filth, the band’s debut album from 1983; a clanking, grinding beast dominated by the unusual presence of not only two bassists but two drummers. The guitar is an afterthought. Some people argue that the Cop album is heavier, and whilst that is true in the fact that Cop is more akin to ‘metal’ than anything that appears on Filth, I firmly believe that the scraping, mechanical abortion of Filth far surpasses any form of heaviness that any metal music could possibly hope to convey. Being 32 years old this year, Filth was incredibly ahead of its time, and far more influential than we could possibly ever hope to measure.

Opening with the lurching “Stay Here”, what Filth is all about becomes apparent very quickly. It is like some horrible machine has come to life. “Power For Power” is one of my favourite songs in the entire universe; the drums are absolutely devastating. This song says a lot to me, not only on an inter-personal level with the games people play with each other, but about Western culture and capitalist/consumerist culture in general. “Thank You” is almost dance-able, before “Weakling” laid the template for every Godflesh song recorded before 1990. It sounds like the world slowly dying….

I own an original pressing of this record, although it has just been lovingly remastered (I’d love to hear the mule kick on that fucker). I could fanboy about this shit for hours so don’t take my word for it, just listen. If you’ve heard it before there’s no reason not to do it again. Crank it ALL the way up for this one.