SLINT

1. "Breadcrumb Trail" (5:55) quite an odd combination of styles and sounds: punkish Americana with pretentiousness and the anger of youth. (8.5/10)

2. "Nosferatu Man" (5:34) sparse, punk-rock-like instrumental sounds with minimalist, angular performances match up well with the same split personality of the vocalist from the opening song: calm, pretentious spoken word sections boxed in by screamed punk-like sections. I can almost see where Simon Reynalds felt that rock might be dead; kind of a combination of Beat-era poetry slamming and King Crimson-infused punk rock. (8.25/10)

3. "Don, Aman" (6:28) opens with more spoken word vocals, "Don stepped outside." Walford's bland electrified guitar strums along with dour chords as McMahan continues relaying his angsty narrative of this all-too-mundane "event." After two minutes and lots of spacious emptiness (is this why TALK TALK got lumped into the Post Rock sub-genre?) the strumming turns less staccato and more constant--though all the time using only soft finger tips to do the strumming. Bass has joined in, then electric guitar, then drums, as the angst (in Don) builds. Weird song that never really seems to resolve itself. (8.25/10)

4. "Washer" (8:50) different singer. Little more "full" musical sound palette--not far from that of contemporaries TALK TALK. A little more "complete" of a song--especially musically--with A and B parts (perhaps even a C!) Still, not anything to write home about--except in terms of how dull music and artistic expression has become. (17/20)

5. "For Dinner..." (5:05) slow, suspenseful start with bass and hi-hat, and then guitar and rest of drums.Alternating between the sparse opening and "full" complement of band members. Lots of bass chords and very careful strumming of the two guitars in just a few chords repeating over and over. In the third minute we get a little variation and dynamic action. Not sure how excited I'm supposed to get: there are no vocals, no story (so far as I can tell) being related. Perhaps that's the key to Post Rock: celebrating the mundane with bland (mundane) music! (8/10)

6. "Good Morning, Captain" (7:39) opens with two distorted slow tremolo dyads accompanied by full bass and drums. Spoken word vocals enter: perspective of a lone survivor of a storm of sea as he catches sight of land. The first song that really demonstrates what kind of skills the instrumentalists have (in particular, the drummer). Definitely a theatric rendering of a scene from a novel or short story. I love how everything ramps up in the final minute. Now THIS is a masterful use of music. Not quite what I'd call progressive rock but definitely art rock. The best song on the album. (13.5/15)

Total Time: 39:31

Soundtracks for a suppressed storyteller? I'm often reminded of the emotional musically-accompanied poetry readings of ANNE CLARKE--though these narrations are less poetic as story scenes. Still literary, though.

B-/3.5 stars; not quite something that I can or would recommend to everyone but definitely an interesting album for those adventurous souls who like to hear everything that music has to offer. The stories are often compelling, even engaging, but the music is often ? not. Funny though, I feel as if I remember liking this album when I first heard it several years ago. What's happened to me since?

Already, Slint was having problems. Their debut release was pretty much unknown and their bass guitarist had left. The members of the band had all started going to college, and only got together sporadically and eventually more often through the summer of 1990. There are even stories that members of the band were institutionalized during the completion of the album. However, one thing was sure, the band wanted their album to sound markedly different from their first album. They tried various methods of recording, including just playing a repetitive guitar, bass, drum pattern and then adding special effects, vocals and embellishments after. In the end, the special effects were completely left off of the album, which was probably a good move. But, the band definitely paid the price as they worked hard on it even at the peril of their sanity.

The finished product ended up with what was at that time a unique sound with angular guitar patterns, unique uses of dynamics, irregular meters and rhythms and vocals that alternated between mumbling spoken word passages and hysterical shouting, but all with narrative style. The album ended up with 6 tracks and a fairly short run time of a little over 30 minutes. But, what a long-lasting punch it delivered.

It all starts off with 'Breadcrumb Trail' which is about a day at a carnival with a fortune teller. It features both clean guitar passages and dissonant, screeching sections. The sound of the music is fairly familiar to most people now as a post rock heaviness, but back in the day, it was a unique sound. Verses are soft with spoken word while the choruses are heavy, noisy and the vocals more frantic. The guitar work seems to be inspired by King Crimson. The music really does seem inspired, even all these years later, and since there were no 'rules' so to speak for post rock, it seems quite inventive even now. 'Nosferatu Man' is inspired by the silent film version of 'Nosferatu'. The beat is more regular, but the high screeching notes of the guitar begin right off the bat this time even with the mumbling spoken word vocals. The percussion uses less cymbal crashing and more snare and tom-toms. The chorus features chunky riffs giving it a nice heavy feel. There is a long instrumental section on the last half of the track that sees the band develop the music further adding additional texturing which would be a practice used by many future post-rock bands.

'Don, Aman' begins mysteriously and more minimal with spoken word and simple guitar. The lyrics deal with the thoughts of a man before, during and after a visit to a bar. The quietness of the vocal delivery invokes the man's inner thoughts. The guitar picks up the pace by strumming a chord sequence and the vocals come back in, still mostly whispered. The volume suddenly increases when another louder guitar comes in for a short time, but then it backs off again and more hushed vocalization. 'Washer' starts off barely discernable, but the full band soon comes in with a slow crawling pattern and then normal, yet soft singing vocals. The music slowly builds, becoming less ambient and more melodic. The music develops and then backs off several times, but each time, it slowly gets more intense but at other times gets quite minimal. Finally, well into the sixth minute, it gets suddenly louder and heavy with intense guitar layering for a short time, and then it backs off again before concluding.

'For Dinner'' is an all instrumental track. It is mostly quite minimal with occasional outbursts of throbbing guitar, but always in a swelling manner, not abruptly. Tension builds and then releases throughout the track. 'Good Morning, Captain' is much more forward in it's sound with a solid beat and dissonant guitar patterns, very similar to a Velvet Underground vibe. This song is a tribute to 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. The music is much tighter than the last few tracks, with a definite solidity which increases in volume and intensity in sudden dynamic outbursts. The spoken word vocals rise above the heavy layers underlining the importance of the lyrical content of the track. During the recording of the track, vocalist McMahan ended up getting sick because of his having to shout over the guitars.

The iTunes edition of this album has an additional track with a duration of about 15 minutes, but is simply just field recordings taken at the quarry where the picture used for the album cover was taken.

The first and last tracks of this album are the best, but are even best appreciated by hearing the entire album together. Overall, it becomes quite an essential recording, important to progressive and rock music lovers because of its influence that it would have in the creation of a new sub-genre. I call it a definite masterpiece with its use of dynamics and the musicianship involved, the amount of restraint and the sacrifice on the band to record the album. Yes, they had their KC and VU influences, but they ended up making a new invention with this combination that worked well. Unfortunately, the band ended up breaking up only to return for occasional gigs after they became more notorious, but the band members all went their separate ways, but continuing to have quiet influence in bands like 'Tortoise', 'King Kong' and 'The Breeders' among others and having influence on the sound of bands like 'Godspeed You! Black Emperor', 'Isis', 'Dinosaur Jr.', 'Explosions in the Sky', and 'Mogwai'. So, yeah, that pretty much makes the album essential.

"Breadcrumb Trail" is a great opener with that picked guitar and drums to start as spoken words join in. It kicks in hard before 1 1/2 minutes as passionate vocals join in almost yelling or shouting the words. I like those high pitched guitar leads too. More spoken words at 2 1/2 minutes then back to the passionate vocals before 3 minutes as contrasts continue. A calm after 4 minutes with strummed guitar and atmosphere. Some nice guitar expressions follow then picked guitar and spoken vocals like the start which continues to the end.

"Nosferatu Man" opens with bass and a beat as high pitched guitar comes and goes over top. Spoken words join in but soon he's shouting a minute in with a heavy sound. More spoken words then back to that opening bit as themes are repeated. Some extended riffing from before 3 1/2 minutes to almost 5 minutes in. "Don, Aman" opens with the words "Don stepped outside..." then some serious sounding strummed guitar takes over. Barely audible spoken words return almost mumbling. A change 2 minutes in as fast paced guitar melodies take over. The distant spoken words are back then another guitar kicks in just before 4 1/2 minutes ripping it up. It steps aside then it all slows right down.

"Washer" is the longest track at almost 9 minutes. Faint guitar to start then it turns fuller with picked guitar, bass and drums. Laid back and melancholic here. Relaxed vocals after a minute as it settles right down as contrasts continue. A sad song. It kicks in with power just before 7 minutes with vocals. Love that guitar but it doesn't last long. "For Dinner..." is an instrumental that is deep sounding and dark. This is laid back as it ebbs and flows.

"Good Morning, Captain" along with the opener are my favourites. A lone picked guitar to start is joined by drums and bass quickly. Catchy stuff as spoken words join in as well. It turns powerful with distorted guitar 2 minutes in but it stops quickly. Another powerful outburst arrives before 4 minutes as we get a longer taste this time, then it happpens again after 6 minutes joined by emotional vocals as it stays powerful. So good!

Influential yes, but also a very good album. I've had this one cranked all week.

If SPIDERLAND is the mother of all post-rock, then perhaps it is safe to assume the offsprings are more accomplished than their progenitors. The bands inspired by SLINT were able to deliver much more memorable post-rock moments, and due to that, SPIDERLAND's only quality is its historical importance. Because, musically speaking, it fails to be worth more than one-third of an hour.

I guess no one can deny SPIDERLAND is experimental and able to deliver an intensely gloomy, desolate, alienated atmosphere. Its recording sessions were filled with disturbing, nervous moments, and perhaps the music is a reflex of it. Conceptually, it's accomplished; a twisted materialization of SLINT's pure gloom and isolation.

Musically... not so much. It has shares of interesting and sincerely tedious moments, where the latter, sadly, is prominent. The first two tracks, as well as the latter, offer solid performances, eclectic variety of interesting and unusual guitar riffs and a technicality that hint its math-rock tendencies and explains SPIDERLAND's status as a landmark. However, from tracks three to six, the dominant stillness is just unnerving. Unnervingly boring, that is.

Music should be equally meaningful and enjoyable to make a good experience, but in SPIDERLAND, SLINT oversaturated the first at the expense of the latter. And the result, in the end, is a somewhat bleak release, with much potential that couldn't be satisfactorily conveyed, even though it does have its share of fine portions that depict SPIDERLAND could be something more.

In 1989, this was revelatory music. At the time, there were many proto-math bands, post-hardcore rockers deep underground who felt it best to crimp Crimson for odd time signatures to spice up their riffs. Now, these bands don't have a snowball's chance in Tartarus of getting into PA, and for good reason: their stuff was barely into the kind of face melting forms that Crimson themselves perfected with the likes of "Fracture" and the title track to "Discipline"; exhibit A is "Umber" by B*tch Magnet. But then a handful of math obsessives, such as the members of BM, got their hands on this little puppy straight outta Louisville, and were blown away. Here was a faceless, mysterious band that weren't afraid to rock hard and weird. We're talking the kind of math that wouldn't be seen again until Don Caballero. They were ahead of their time and timeless.

The album starts out strong with "Ron", tumbling through the embryonic form of "Nosferatu Man" fast and hard as someone complains about their headphones. This epic display leads into a quick moving and flowing sequence of tracks, sometimes rather short, blistering with speed, heaviness, and signature shifts. The album as a whole feels triumphant yet boxed in, dark, and unknowable. The vocals are the only thing here prototypical to "Spiderland", coming out randomly and strangely, not yet in line with the dour first person narratives of the follow up. But that matters not, as the music continues to bend and excite for a half hour - my only complaint is that there isn't more of it.

Excepting "Discipline", this is the founding document of math rock, socks knocking and worthy in its own right.

"Tweez" in '89 showed a promising post-hardcore band through their fierce early math punk, but they suddenly decided to slow things down, hold fury back, and sprawl in a way never done before. They took an important early thread of the aptly named slowcore movement, that of a lethargic rock band who wasn't afraid to suddenly catapult into pitch and rage (see also Codeine's classic "Frigid Stars LP"), and did two now legendary things with this style and formula: one was to contort the slow side into something drawn out and more textural than riffy, perhaps also a corruption of "Spirit of Eden"'s guitar lines; and using what was left in them of their hardcore math for the rage moments. This of course proved doubly genre defining and makes for a depressedly beautiful and smashing record. Especially vital to this new form was also how sheerly angular it was, making everything about it in at least some small way connected to math with it's irregular time signatures in a way lost on most later post, similar to them also leaving Talk Talk's fusion side behind.

In spite of minimal takes during the sessions, the whole process proved brutal, refreshing as it was to the band themselves to hear their new sound, likely encouraging the particular atmosphere of the tracks. As well, due to this and not having written any lyrics beforehand, during the original compositional process, the band quickly threw together some suitably dark lyrics in the studio that were mainly spoken word; this proved the final piece of the puzzle, the last element to pull everything together, to make tracks like "Breadcrumb Trail" so immediately gripping and undeniably brilliant. The result is massively influential and the ultimate soundtrack to desolate countrysides and dying cities, a brilliantly formed and excellently played magnum opus.

TWEEZ on the other hand is one of the most unique post-hardcore albums i've ever heard. It truly resonates on a musical frequency that no other album ever has. It exists on some strange bandwidth of sonic expression that i have never encountered. It is a strange little album that at times reminds me of Jane's Addiction's "Nothing's Shocking" era mixed with the typical post-hardcore, noise and math rock of the early 90s sometimes bringing Sonic Youth to mind, sometimes more punk inspired bands like NoMeansNo and sometimes just a plain old alternative rock band that for some reason brings Camper Van Beethoven to mind as an example or even like a pre-grunge band well before the Nirvana 90s. The guitars are highly distorted, the bass and drums fairly regular and the band seems to find a way to walk the line between disturbing dissonance and melodic funky beats. The attitude is more of a punk band but the music reels you into a more alternative rock mode. There are times it also reminds me of Jimi Hendrix with riffs and feedback fuzz, there is also a kind of black metal filthiness to the sound and the signals are definitely set to a very mixed grab bag! My kinda weirdness!

TWEEZ is not an album i sought out. I was only marginally impressed with "Spiderland" finding it a decent listen but not something that shattered my concept of originality but TWEEZ does seem to do that. This album found me! This is a short album at only 29:31. I understand why the lover's of the proto-post-rock "Spiderland" do not give this debut album enough love. It is nothing like that more subdued release. This album is filthy, aggressive and unapologetic. It's a hitherto unexplored form of neo-punk that really hits me in the right way. Personally i would have loved to hear this sound develop but i can't say that i'm sorry SLINT moved on to the post-rock territory that allowed all those wonderful bands that i love these days to follow. I probably won't convince too many that this debut album is actually better than "Spiderland" but in my world i find myself really excited to listen to TWEEZ, much preferred to the more influential followup. All i can recommend is not to write this album off just because of the low rating. If you have any interest in raw and dirty indie rock and post-hardcore then this is an album you won't regret checking out.

All that said, Spiderland is a bit unusual an example of both genres, since it was created when the sound of each hadn't been thoroughly codified. Most of the album is based in subdued, melancholic guitar rock with uneasy spoken narrations over them that occasionally, though briefly, build into tormented screams. The songs shift meter signatures frequently, with the first two songs in particular using at least five time signatures each and shifting between them rapidly; it's easy to see how the genre of "math rock" got its name. "Washer" is the only song whose vocals are mostly sung, and it's perhaps unsurprisingly the most melancholy piece here, being a lengthy rumination on sleep and death. These are two themes that seem to underpin the entire album; the whole album has an eerie, dreamlike quality that only unsettles more as the album pushes towards its climax.

That climax comes with "Good Morning, Captain", a piece inspired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. While the whole album has been a bit unsettling to this point, "Good Morning" takes this to a new level, with the entire song based around a dissonant chord pattern and climaxing in the most tortured screams on the whole record (and, arguably, some of the most unsettling in the history of rock music). It's said that some of the band members had to be institutionalised after they completed the recording process (which was accomplished in a marathon four-day session); in particular, vocalist Brian McMahon's screams on "Good Morning" are said to have contributed to this.

Much has been written about the album's sound, but it's worth taking a look at the album's lyrics as well. Firstly, there is an underlying subtext of sleep and dreams to the album's songs: Don in "Don, Aman" makes the momentous decision that concludes the song after sleep; "Washer" touches on the sanctuary of sleep and yet also the fear of losing things within sleep; the narrative focus of many of the songs takes on the atmosphere of a dream.

Perhaps more important to the album's musical subtext, though, is the undercurrent of horror and trauma. The album tends to be sparse on narrative detail, written as though a listener is already familiar with the locales in which the songs are set - which, of course, we are not. This lets us focus more on the events described in the songs, but these, too, are often sparse on detail. Even the opening "Breadcrumb Trail", which on its surface is a description of a romantic meeting between its unnamed narrator and a fortune-teller, is written in a way that unsettles a listener slightly. Psychologists have noted that victims of trauma often elide both foundational context and the horrifying truth of the trauma itself, and the song itself, with its supporting cast of the "soiled" and grotesque, certainly makes us feel as though we have been made party to some fundamental revelation, yet the revelation itself is never made clear.

This continues throughout the album, as most of songs conclude with a momentous event that is never actually described. The queen in "Nosferatu Man" dies, but we never find out how (though it's implied through vampirism); Don in "Don, Aman" makes a momentous decision, but we never find out what; the captain of "Good Morning, Captain" appears to be fleeing some Lovecraftian horror, but the horror is never described. The entire album has an undercurrent of Gothic horror, and the fact that its narration is so sparse on details makes it more unsettling, not less; the songs wouldn't be nearly as effective without their lyrical content.

It's difficult to look at the album now divorced from its historical context. The fact that Slint broke up shortly after making this recording no doubt further contributes to its mystique (despite planning to go on tour and even having a notice saying that interested female vocalists should contact the band). They have reunited sporadically since then and have hinted that some day they may produce new material; they have even performed new songs occasionally, but thus far this remains Slint's final studio album. Even if they never record another note of music, their legacy will have been secured with this album.

It is interesting to hear just which parts influenced different post-rock acts that followed. The opener "Breadcrumb Trail" and its Godspeed! You Black Emperor narrations and the slower songs being heavily influential for Toby Driver's Maudlin Of The Well and Kayo Dot projects. Although I don't love this album as much as others simply because I find the vocals a bit weak in the screaming department and way too much talking instead of some kind of singing, I do recognize this as the landmark historically important album for what it is and I do kinda like the music which is mostly a punkish dissonance with a reggae kind of syncopation for a lot of the more upbeat tracks whilst the slower tracks are pure ambient riffing and atmospheric generators. Worth having alone for the mark it's made on the musical world but I can't say I enjoy listening to this on a regular basis. 3.5 rounded down