THE BURNING WORLD

After reviewing one release by SWANS' side project ANGELS OF LIGHT, I was encouraged to have a gander at an issuance from the parent group, and that turned out to be "Burning World". In my focused and threadbare 1980s rock paradigm, this possibly atypical MIchael Gira production sits comfortably above what I have heard from noted influence NICK CAVE and strikingly beneath the best work by another perceived (by me anyway) influence the late David McComb of the Australian group THE TRIFFIDS. I acknowledge that McComb itself must have modelled himself after Cave, but with a more rooted approach he was always destined to appeal to me much more. While main squeeze Jarboe helps offset the Gira drone on a few tracks, that is unfortunately all she does since those numbers are generally innocuously forgettable.

This is folkier than I was expecting, with nary a trace of what I would anticipate from highbrow math rock or the documented clout on metal purported of SWANS. Of course, in and of itself this is a plus for me, and on "The River that Runs with Love Won't Run Dry",the MOODY BLUES ish "Mona LIsa Mother Earth, and the poignant "Universal Emptiness" and "God Damn the Sun", Gira's tendency to help us to heaping spoonful upon spoonful of angst is at its peak. Most of the rest offers satisfying glimpses of his dissatisfaction blended with the musical drudgery that is just the wrong side of the tracks from his stock in trade. It's a balancing act handled well but not spectacularly so. Gira's voice is a plus throughout and his level of decline over the next decade and a half is shocking

"Burning World" is a solid collection with sparks aplenty but which doesn't ignite nearly enough to warrant classic status.