Swans – To Be Kind

Great sounding press of one of the best albums to be released in the last 10 years. Full, lush and powerful. Super stoked to have caught wind before it sold out. 10 out of 10 all the way.

Great Pressing, Sounds and Looks Fantastic. Oxygen and Kirsten Supine are in the wrong order?? doesn't really bother me, just weird.. am I alone on this or is the discogs page wrong?

Saw these comments after I ordered a copy on ebay and was very nervous, maybe I got lucky but my copy is flawless! No warps or static at all through the whole project. I’ve got just about every Swans release on vinyl and this sounds just as good as the other young god pressings. No complaints here!

Horrible sounding LP. I traded mine for a signed black 2020 press, which sounds immaculate.

Oof, this is a real rough pressing. Velcro ripping sound pretty much throughout the whole thing on my right speaker. Gave a good wet cleaning to no improvement. Man, what happened?

Discogs reviews can often lean hard into hyperbole but I wanted to say that I, too, drew a short straw on this one. No two ways about it.

One LP was notably warped, but can be flattened. Another needed to be cleaned upon arrival, but still has a white crescent shaped gash directly into the wax. It would interfere with Bring The Sun… if I was foolish enough to risk spinning this thing. Trying to get a replacement for it.

There was zero padding in the mailer, either, so I got some nice creases along the edge of the spine. Being that this was priced $15 higher than the standard black vinyl, it’s hard not to feel like it was a bit of a cash grab when quality control is seemingly so low, based off many comments here. Super glad I never sold off my black OG, which sounds great through and through and has a jacket in top shape.

Kind of an unconventionally meh press for YGR. I hope they step up their quality and packaging for future vinyl re/presses.

Said it would ship on the 7th, but I'm still waiting for a confirmation email. Is anyone else experiencing the same issue?

EDIT: Just got mine in today. Unfortunately, all three discs came with some kind of defect. First one has deep scratches that look too straight to be simple paper inner scuffing - second one has a large non-fill bevel in the middle of track D2, and the third (and most minor of the three) has a black speck where the black vinyl puck must have not cooled correctly with the red additive.

How was this pressed at RTI of all places??? Even GZ had a better first impression than this pressing. Hoping it doesn't play as awful as it looks.

2ND EDIT: Just played it and...wow. It's even worse than expected. Off-centre pressing galore on all three discs, and a bonus edge warp on the first disc. Literally half of the record sides play a velcro-ripping noise that's audible almost through it's entire playback time. I'm trying my best to hold in my anger with this pressing, but I'm not even sure if "incredibly disappointing" are the right words to describe what I feel about it. It's like my copy was accidentally made to fuck with the limits of my turntable.

3RD EDIT: Got my replacement copy in the mail and, unsurprisingly, it has the same severity of unfixable non-fill on all three discs (plus, the bevel that's present in the exact same location, on the second disc). I managed to get a refund but I'm still very disappointed. Just abysmal QC with this pressing.

surface noise. Much more than most records I've bought new.

There's quite a bit of surface noise on the quiet parts, but once more music comes in it's harder to notice. Love the bonus things it comes with, like the poster and the autograph from Michael Gira. Amazing album!