Review: Swans perform a masterful balancing act between light and dark, hope and hopelessness on leaving meaning.

When Michael Gira picks up his paintbrush and raises it to a canvas, he conjures an atmosphere incomparably foreboding. With a mind as unrelentingly dark as Gira's, fans can rest assured--or hidden under your covers--that the latest reincarnation of Swans and the project's newest album, leaving meaning. is black as the night. However, there is an impossibly visible modicum of light at the end of the tunnel this time around; an iridescent optimism that we've yet to experience in its full capacity...