Antony Hegarty has only amassed a slim discography in his 12-year stint in the musical spotlight with Antony and the Johnsons, but the emotional gravitas of that work casts a long shadow over anything that follows it. His 2009 album, The Crying Light, was an invigorating intertwining of gender politics and environmental themes, but Antony has made the step of broadening his pallet this time, ultimately producing a less concept-heavy set of songs. Familiar themes still surface, with the natural world continuing to loom large in Antony’s conscience, but much of Swanlights is ambiguous and less easy to decipher. It’s essentially a set of love songs penned to an unknown object of his affections, all set to the deathly minimalism of the Johnsons, whose work beautifully atrophies over time, coming ever closer to devolving into dust with each passing recording.Read full article here.
