Mister Trend's Random 10

I’m sure they are out there, but I can’t think of any bands whose lyrics dealt more harrowingly with questions of religion without ever being religious the way the Swans did. The Great Annihilator, the album with this week’s seventh song, deals (as the album title reveals) with questions of death and mortality/immortality bound in questions of the family relations and spirituality. Much like the albums Children of God and White Light from the Mouth of Infinity, Michael Gira, Jarboe, and company give alternately harrowing and promising visions of life and death, as well as the possibility (or impossibility) of an afterlife (there’s nothing quite like Gira’s deep bellowing “The sex in your soul will damn you to hell!” on Children of God). Yet their lyrics are at best ambiguous as to the outcome of human life upon death, with as many songs pessimistic as optimistic. Any notion of a particular concrete religious framework is absent, which only strengthens the power of the words. It’s some pretty powerful stuff, laden with a sense of the spiritual without ever being beholden to religiosity or coming off as “preachy” or devout.

1. “Exagerado” – Arnaldo Antunes
2. “15 Step” – Radiohead
3. “Weissensee” – Neu!
4. “Le Garage” – The Futureheads
5. “Things’ll Never Be the Same” – Spacemen 3
6. “Passageiro” – Tom Zé
7. “Telepathy” – Swans
8. “Bitches Brew” – Miles Davis
9. “Empty House Blues” – Blind Lemon Jefferson
10. “He Woke Me Up Again” – Sufjan Stevens