Swans - Greed / Holy Money

Label: K.422
Year: 1992

Please note, this is a reissue of the two records 'Greed' and 'Holy Money' originally released in 1986.
Often described as a transitional time for the band, as they air out their dystopian industrial art damage and bleak droning haunts with some no less disturbing, and certainly no more optimistic, softer sounds
Oddly, the reissue reorders the songs from both records and jumbles them together to form a somewhat "new" album. While both records were supposedly recorded at the same time, certain tracks on both kept more a foot into the previously developed harshness of the 'Cop' era Swans, and others begin that departure into a more post-Bauhaus darkness with a P.I.L. experimentation, and the emergence of Jarboe as a major player in the sound. The sound gets more spare, with an emphasis on the discomforting silences between notes. Repetition plays a sustained role in this era of the band.
You can probably trace quite a few of your favorite bands right back to this era of Swans, whether they be Godflesh, Cop Shoot Cop, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, P.J. Harvey, Earth, Neurosis, Sisters Of Mercy, Akron/Family, Type O Negative...I mean...shit. Lots. If you were on a college campus circa 1988-1994 you saw LOTS of Swans t-shirts (usually on bespectacled gentlemen of questionable fitness), so the influence was out and about whether acknowledged or not.

DL