After a fourteen year absence, Michael Gira resurrects his legendary apocalyptic no-wave band for a fabulous new album on his own Young God imprint. Assembling a cast of musicians that includes familiar Swans and Angels Of Light conspirators, Gira also welcomes a few new members to the fold with guest stars including Devendra Banhart, Mercury Rev's Grasshopper, Bill Rieflin (of Ministry, REM and Robyn Hitchcock's band), Shearwater multi-instrumentalist Thor Harris and even Gira's three-and-a-half year-old daughter, who duets with Banhart on (the surely highly inappropriate) 'You Fucking People Make Me Sick'. This new album quickly proves itself to be very much the record Swans fans are likely to have been hoping for, hurtling through the nine-minute musical hydra of 'No Words/No Thoughts' with all the terrifying, dirging committment and musical ingenuity you'd expect from this band. The wailing trombones and tolling bells terrify and beguile in equal measure, blasting away fourteen years of cobwebs in time for the doomy, Western balladry of 'Reeling The Liars In' and the raucous, Nick Cave-like barroom prowler, 'Jim'. Norman Westberg's guitar is a fearsome presence throughout this record (jutting out especially violently during 'My Birth' and the brilliant 'Eden Prison') yet there's no juxtaposition between these wrenched-out industrial groans and the more delicate instrumentation littered across the record: Swans make dulcimers, mandolins and trumpets sound like implements of the devil's own jug band. The particular brand of dark beauty and brutish poetry evident on My Father Will Guide Me.. finds Gira enjoying his most sure-footed form for many a year, and perhaps beyond all expectation, it feels like a worthy continuation of this seminal band's legacy. (boomkat)

THE WIRE'S BEST OF 2010:

"Any reservations about Michael Gira’s decision to reconvene Swans 13 years after putting them on ice quickly melt once the tolling bells of opening track “No Words/No Thoughts” concede ground to Swans’ signature foundry rhythm. Gira obsessively overwrites all previous versions of the group, even as his 2010 Swansongs balance, combine and layer their earlier experiments in guitar density and duration with blinding shafts of light. We said: “[Gira] is looking for beauty, pure and simple, unfettered by meaning or standard songwriting notions of emotional resonance.” (September/319)"