Swans - Feel Good Now

Feel Good now is a decent documentation of Swans in their early days. Having been recorded by a roadie on a personal music player during their 87 European tour, it's fairly surprising just how good the sound quality is on this album. This live recording goes back to the days when Swans were a fairly scary band. All the primal anger that seemed to dwell inside them was let out nightly as they attacked their respective instruments in an almost war cry like manner. The difference between this brutal, fresh sound and their later "mature" fairly generic post-punk sound is almost incredible. Still, I can't imagine screaming your lungs out and playing the same tribal groove every night for your entire musical career is something that anyone would want to keep up.

Here we have a young band. Full of fresh ideas and having realized they have a strong following. They use this cult status to push the barrier on the difference between tribal and western music. What comes out is a band with enough anger, vitriol and venom to really fulfill what they set out to do. A monument to the sheer organized brutality that the underground can breed.

Swans - Like A Drug (live)
Swans - New Mind (live)

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