Raised by Swans - Raised by Swans Is the Name of a Man, Volume 1 (2021)

Eric Howden, the head and the soul of Raised by Swans, is an artist who, as I see it, managed to stay far away from the music mainstream but at the same time gathered the most devoted and emotionally invested bunch of fans around him. Personally, I find No Ghostless Place one of THE albums of my youth, one of the most formative releases to my music taste. After his third album, Howden disappeared for 7 years but he's back and the material on his newest album is as good as ever.

What's more important: it's everything the fans would expect. It's centered around the artist's uniquely sounding voice, the airiness of which set the atmosphere of his whole career. You can barely notice that Fortress Without Doors is from 2021 unlike, let's say, By an Ion. The vocals are accompanied by extremely subtle music. In fact, it's so subtle, the whole thing can be safely called ambient pop although it's made on live instruments and there's no, or next to no electronics. There's synths though in the backgrounds and I think the only change on the new album are those synth-oriented, delicately industrial or wavey vibes we hear.

But the most important thing are the emotions conveyed by Howden. Everybody who knows the project and has followed it on social media is aware of the delicate nature of Howden's psyche. They way he translates this into music is absolutely unbelievable. There's so much heart-brokenness and loneliness it could share with tens of other projects. The title of the album suggests some change though, I personally hope it means that the man is getting stronger, especially that it doesn't make his music less interesting or beautiful.

Raised by Swans Is the Name of a Man, Volume 1 costs 13 CAD.

Check: Firestorms /DCI

Country: Canada

Genre: dreamy slowcore

:bandcamp:

:facebook:
:official:

:spotify: