Swords, Nate

Diagnostic, not prescriptive. Common wisdom suggests that it is easier to understand what is wrong with something, what is broken or not working about a given object or system, than it is how to fix it. That feels true even if it isn't because proper diagnosis is as important as proper prescription of treatment. It is not, for example, enough to say that "something is wrong," or that "cultural connection feels disrupted and disconnected" or that "I fear I am living through the end of the world." One must identify the pain before the pain can be healed, if it can be at all.

This is where the realm of the personal intersects with the world of the performance. Perhaps when one hears Lutsko sing—"But mainly I'm just confused / Is there something I missed? / It's like everyone is doomed / But nobody's pissed"; or, just as pointedly: "I'm stuck on the fence / Between 'missing the point' / And 'there's nothing to get'"—it means nothing outside itself, outside one argument or reflection to be disagreed with. Perhaps one hears lines like these and a bell rings somewhere in the space between the physical heart and the metaphysical one, a tone that might be an alarm, might be the teacher's hand chime of work well done, but resonates, recognizes its likeness, either way.

This is all a very florid way of highlighting the occasionally elegant, occasionally blunt way in which Swords spends its lyrical and musical time grappling with the notion of existing inside American culture and discourse during the decline of both. Lutsko has identified the pain and is pressing his thumb on the bruise.

There is argument, then there is presentation of argument. Is it obvious and somewhat trite to suggest "cell phones have warped us?" Certainly. Does wrapping this sentiment in a soul-inspired singalong that presents the album's sunniest moment, one of the record's rare instances of straightforward musical joy (this would, of course, be "Straightjacket," which can't get through its choral breakdown without a carnival waltz breaking through) give the entire question a different lilt, a different read? Is Lutsko suggesting that, for as warped and broken people may be by having everything at once, what other comfort is available? Even if he's not, the fact that a weird pop song allows room for the question speaks to a sharper cultural observation than the average guitarman. It highlights the pain, shoots it into a prism.

All this freak show carnival flourishing—the xylophone of it all—is central to the appeal of Swords, as much as its unwillingness to stick within a specific musical framework. Everything is a hall of mirrors here: the straightforward electro-pop song ("Sick"), the Trojan Horse Americana misery ("Salt"), the glitchy anti-grace note that closes the proceedings ("Software"). If nothing musically presented here seems straightforward—if it all seems needlessly involved and complicated—that's not just an expression of musical creativity or ability. It comes baked into the very theme and focus of the album, which is living online, in person, in America, everywhere all the time. It's not a reach to see this album as a reaction to trump's America, to hear the dual conversation of "Streets" and cast it into comparison with the right-wing political movement as seen from the left and left back to right, to see "Sideshow" and "Superior" as generational conflicts calling and responding; the new battling the old, the old rejecting the new.

But really, the trick of the thing and the truth that Lutsko seems to understand, is that none of these issues live in isolation with each other, that each of these infections and sins feed off each other. Division does not come just through technology, ideology, generational misunderstanding, social unrest; it comes through all of those things, all at once, all the time, and it's overwhelming and, tragically, perhaps unrepairable (a flaw in the software, if you follow Swords' metaphor). Every victory has its corresponding defeat, every thesis has its antithesis, the city's marching in the streets for an awakening, both sides, all wrong.

Swords is not a hopeful record. It joins a short list of critical klaxons released in the last half-decade taking an artful, nuanced look at life under crisis. Welcome it to the bad news hall of fame, where it belongs. The tunnel only leads to darkness, the sound of the slide into the depths is immaculate.