With last year’s release of My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to Heaven, Swans’ first album since their disbandment in 1996, Michael Gira wanted to make it perfectly clear that this is not a reunion. It’s still Swans, but with a facelift: new members, some departures (including, regrettably, Jarboe), and a more refined sound.

The murmurs of discontent were inevitable. Many feared that Gira had become soft. 1996’s Soundtracks for the Blind was already a departure from the brutal, pounding no wave of Swans’ early career, and Gira’s work with Angels of Light went in a more acoustic, folk-oriented direction.

But then they went on tour, and all the naysayers shut up.

If you’ve never seen Swans perform live, some explanation is required. First of all, a Swans show is unlike any other concert experience. In fact, it’s more of a performance art piece than a concert. It begins, about fifteen minutes before they go on, with a simple feedback drone that gradually increases in volume. By the time percussionist Thor walks onstage for a ten-minute trancelike tubular bell solo, the drone has reached a deafening amplitude. But this, of course, is just a preparation for what’s to come: the loudest, heaviest, and most emotionally draining performance you’ll ever witness.

Of course, much of Swans’ emotional intensity comes from Michael Gira’s twisted lyrics and frantic performance, and he’s lost none of the original fire that he had in the early ’80s. Gira is a man possessed onstage, furiously strumming and screaming, as if to communicate some agony that can’t be expressed with words. His accompanying musicians, which includes only one original Swans member (guitarist Norm Westberg), have the same sense of artful noisemaking as the original Swans lineup. Even in its quietest moments, their sound is at once pummeling and exquisite, reaching celestial heights and furious depths.

It’s this tension between the transcendental and the demonic that makes Swans’ live performances so stunning. Of all the concerts I’ve been to in my days, none has been so moving, so terrifying, and so sublime as Michael Gira and the newly reformed Swans. Head to the El Rey on March 2nd, and you’ll see what I mean.

Opening the show will be two distinguished members of Gira’s Young God label, Devendra Banhart and Wooden Wands. Get tickets while you still can.