Artist of The Day: Silver Swans

I have always thought that there is a pretty huge difference between having "freedom" and being "free." Having freedom means you can choose your career, your lover, your house, and even something as futile as your politics. Just because you have the ability to choose doesn't mean you have the ability to be happy, though. Freedom to me just means you have a few choices and you have the opportunity to better or worsen yourself with one of those choices. I have always thought that being free means that you could make any of those choices and still be joyful, that you could make any of those choices and still have hope, and no matter what choices you make you still have a pulse and you still have the opportunity to succeed. Freedom is the ability to choose and being free is the ability to be content with whatever good or bad decision or decisions you have made or will make.

I think the Silver Swans Forever might just be one of the most free records I have heard in a while. Every song on hear sounds like any of the choices that we could have made: "House of Blood" and its jungle like beat sounds like someone who has decide on a life of being "wild," the atmospheric stoner sound of "Secrets" sounds like someone who is taking delight in how lost they are, "Let It Happen" sounds like the sounds of someone falling in love with an idea of a person and a person at the same time, "Actual Pain" is the sounds of suffering in one song, "Diary Land" sounds like a song of salvation, and "Karen" sounds like a hook up anthem that anyone could easily dance to. The album has a song for just about every type of person on planet earth and never really makes any outlandish statements but has a sound that is reassuring them that whatever it is they are doing is totally fine. They are fine. The album is not about tweleve songs it is about 40 minutes, it is not about 12 songs it is about at least 10 different kinds of people, and it is about how these people will cherish their freedom Forever because they have learned how to be free.

Some critics will probably describe Forever as a lethal combination of the sexiness of St. Vincent, the atmospheric nature of Animal Collective, the relaxed instrumentation of Deerhunter, and the consistency of all of those bands. But I will remember Forever as an album that is a reminder of the importance of being free: every riff is a reminder the "freedom of our choices," every catchy chorus reminds us of the open road that is our future, and every song is a reminder that we are "okay" because we had the go nads to even make a choice in the first place. Listening to Forever and Silver Swans might be one of the easiest and most freeing choices you have this year.

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