Swans Bid Adieu to L.A. With Trademark Rigor

You don’t go into a Swans concert expecting sentimentality, even if it is the band’s finale in Los Angeles, a city where leader Michael Gira once cut his teeth on the punk and performance art scene.

True to form, the band’s Roxy show on Saturday--part of its farewell U.S. tour--was a typically demanding performance of rigorous, mainly new material. You sensed that the idea of a career-capping overview or a few special selections never entered their minds.

And really, it shouldn’t have been any other way. The Swans’ underlying platform has been one of uncompromising independence, an approach that has given them a following that’s as loyal as it is limited. While such kindred acts as Nick Cave, Nine Inch Nails and Sonic Youth have managed to make their angst-mining more or less listener-friendly, the Swans remain stubbornly difficult to the end.

These little-known shapers of a well-known genre have been reporting from the rim of the void for 15 years, and you can understand the frustration that’s led to their impending retirement. Saturday’s performance was marked by the grippingly intense ensemble playing and slight increase in accessibility of the latter-day Swans, but, perhaps reflecting the band’s lame-duck status, it seemed a little more automatic than usual. Gira must want to get this over with.