Michael Gira’s triumphant resurrection of Swans over the past few years has been more than a reboot. The gravelly visionary has recast himself as a dark evangelist, a man on a mission to pull thunder from the heavens and violent lust out of the repressed corners of the collective psyche. He was a different person 35 years ago, and Swans was a different band—but on Filth, Swans’ 1983 debut album, the unholy trinity of thunder, violence, and lust had already been well and powerfully established.
On the new, 3xCD reissue of Filth, Gira’s protean potency is a harsh, unstable thing. The album was born in the wake of New York’s no wave movement, and Gira has professed to being antipathetic toward that scene—although Filth couldn’t have been made without its influence. The angularity, dissonance, and conspicuous illogic of no wave is ported over to tracks such as “Stay Here” and “Right Wrong”, studies in disjointed animosity and bone-crushing, industrialized hip-thrusts that makes the funkiness of the era’s post-punk sound plastic.