Spiderland --- Slint

I was afraid of this record.

It's a record I almost thought of never buying. Slint had inspired so many...bad...bands, I couldn't help but be wary. I thought Spiderland had the possibility of being the Led Zepplin IV of the ::shudder:: "post-rock" set.

How very very wrong I was.

Spiderland is the only CD I've listened to for four days straight now.

Six songs, nearly forty minutes. "Breadcrumb Trail" and "Good Morning, Captain" are the perfect bookends. This record has twists within twists, and you pick up something new everytime you listen to it.

There aren't lyrics as much as spoken, sometimes shouted, rambling and seemingly improvised narratives. The instruments sound like a hard drive processing information, whirring and wheezing with the occasional random silence, trying to pull everything together into a cohesive stream.

I can't believe how good this is, and I can't believe how much I like it. It was something I was ready to declare immensely overrated. But I can't do it.

I've had the first Slint record, Tweez, for a few months. It's a good record, but not great. THe only really kick-ass "song" is the first track, "Ron" I believe it's called.

This record proves that Korn and Limp Bizkit (it's time for an article on DFFQI about how bad these bands are, methinks) are not angry, nor are they heavy. This record makes all 1990s "hardcore" pretty redundant. This record proves that the city of Chicago is not as deserving of a nuclear holocaust as I had previously imagined.

Then again, it WAS released in 1991, and the last, oh, few dozen Drag City re-enforce the need for, um,"urban renewal" in Illinois. At least in the sectors Jimmy O'Rourke's filty little paws have played in.

But I digress. Spiderland is one of the best records to come from the MidWest. Buy it. (Touch & Go)

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Mike Keegan
9.6.1999

http://www.klink.net/~tatara/DFFQI.html