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The D____ Yellow Swans (Dove, on this release) create so much sound, it can be hard to believe it’s all the product of just two men. Pete Swanson and Gabriel Saloman use guitar, drum machine, and electronics primarily, layering sound on sound to create an impervious din. The band’s stated aims include “the opening of new doors of perception” and “spiritual journey,” but two hippie dudes never sounded so menacing. Life During War Crimes collects material from three previous Yellow Swans releases on SNSE, Hung Like a Horse?!?, and their own Collective Jyrk imprint, though the compilation flows in a way that belies the material’s disparate beginnings.

The six untitled tracks that make up Life During War Crimes aren’t entirely enveloping experiences, but it’s understandable if the dark clouds of sound disorient more than one listener. As sounds are layered upon sounds, the best tracks on the album become foggy soups in which more piercing tones and squeals suffer and sink, as if victims of a sonic tar pit. The rhythms are best when they’re buried a bit, when beats become too obvious, they counteract the more inherently pleasing tempos that the duo create in a more obscured manner. The blighted post-industrial wastelands of more nihilistic noise artists receive more than a few musical nods here, but Life During War Crimes teems with life rather than exploring death, sounds rise from the dirty heaps like writhing maggots, and Yellow Swans put a magnifying glass over the minute scavengers that survive in the darkest folds of the din.

Life During War Crimes, despite being a compilation of sorts, was recorded entirely in May and June 2004, and as the disc progresses, what could be happenstance similarities become more calculated constants in the creations of the duo. The album captures the sound of a specific period in the group’s existence, and proves through repetition that Swanson and Saloman have a good handle on their craft. And while there are times that atmosphere of the music suffers under the weight of the rather crowded sonic foreground, Life During War Crimes remains an intriguing document of a duo in sync, and, as a compilation, proof that those runs of limited edition releases aren’t just for the collector scum in us all.

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