Birthing

With Birthing, it flat-out demands your complete willingness to enter the void. And yet, rather than sounding drained or diminished by that darkness, Swans remain astonishingly vital 17 albums into their career.

Despite running for over 2 hours, the album feels notably succinct, even concise.

Birthing does not resolve so much as disperse into a shimmering lullaby afterworld. It releases you, maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it’s still playing and you haven’t noticed. Maybe you’ve changed afterward. Maybe not. It’s no new world for Swans. But it does feel like a world that’s more charged with that strange luminosity of those brightest days, when the edges of everything feel like they’re dispersing into the atmosphere. Whatever it is, it’s a beautiful thing.

Although lacking the shock of the new, Birthing is a far more thematic and aurally darning meditation than most. [Aug 2025, p.74]

Essentially, it's not that far off from The Glowing Man, which means that it's familiar territory for anyone who has spent time with the band's albums or experienced their concerts, but it's still an incredibly powerful record.

It’s not an album you listen to so much as one you submit to, like an exorcism. Like every Swans record, this one’s about stamina.