To Be Kind

Album Summary

To Be Kind is the thirteenth studio album by American experimental rock band Swans, released on May 12, 2014. A double album, it was recorded by producer John Congleton in Texas. The songs were developed during the band's 2012 and 2013 tours. The deluxe edition includes a live DVD of the band's performance at the 2013 Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona. The album received widespread critical acclaim, continuing a string of well-received albums from the band. The album peaked at number 37 on US Billboard 200, and debuted at number 38 on the UK Albums Chart. Both are the highest chartings that Swans had ever achieved on a studio album and it is the first time that the band cracked the top 40 in both countries. Benjamin Bland of Drowned in Sound gave the album a 10/10 score and stated, "This is an album that emphasises rather than establishes Swans' reconfirmed position at the top of the experimental rock tree, but that doesn’t make it any less of a thrill." He further commented, "Now that this mission has been completed there is space for To Be Kind, and future Swans records to affirm, rather than prove, that Swans are, and perhaps always have been, the greatest rock group on the face of the planet." Writing for Rolling Stone, Kory Grow compared the album to The Seer, as well as the 1996 effort Soundtracks for the Blind, noting how "Swans' sound has evolved so that they "don't just crush—they hypnotize".