This year marks the 25th anniversary of the release of the enigmatic album “Spiderland.”  Louisville’s own Slint formed 30 years ago this year. They broke up in 1991, leaving us with two albums (and releasing a post-breakup EP in 1994).

The original lineup consisted of bassist Ethan Buckler, guitarist/vocalist Brian McMahan, guitarist David Pajo, and drummer Britt Walford. Todd Brashear replaced Ethan Buckler as bassist after their first album was released.

Its members came from a hardcore punk background, playing in bands like Squirrel Bait and Maurice before forming a band.

“Tweez” was their first album, recorded by Steve Albini. The album clocks in at just under 30 minutes, and consists of playful-but-sinister noise rock experiments that have a pretty clear Big Black influence, especially on the opening track, “Ron.”

The group’s second album, “Spiderland,” was released in 1991. The playful nature of “Tweez” is nowhere to be found, and what is left are six bleak, dark songs. It has been credited as being one of the first post-rock/math rock/post-hardcore/whatever albums, but pinning it down to a specific genre is a difficult task.

The album can shift from relaxing to nauseating on the turn of a dime, and its spoken-word vocals can be off-putting for many listeners. For the most part, the actual sound of the album is very isolated. There are few clear musical influences outside of Neil Young (A live cover of “Cortez the Killer” is included in the “Spiderland” remaster).

Walford cites Madonna as an influence on the album’s sound, production-wise, mainly because her music had “a little bit more polished sound.”

Walford also says that the influences on the album were not restricted to music.

“Me and Brian (McMahan) went to Chicago to go to school. That was kind of intense, being uprooted,” Walford said. “We were kind of unused to being in a more mainstream environment. We were used to being in maybe a little safer, more friendly environment. The lake from Chicago comes to mind as an influence.

“Brian seemed to pull on literary influences, and maybe some film stuff. We saw a movie called ‘Winter Light’ (directed by Ingmar Bergman). Big influence.”

The album was recorded by Brian Paulson in the fall of 1990 and was released in the spring of 1991. They had been working on the songs on and off for about a year before recording, going on hiatus if a member would return to school.

Walford said, “’Nosferatu Man’ and ‘Good Morning, Captain’ were early ones, then ‘Washer.’ After that, at some point Todd (Brashear), the bass player, brought ‘Breadcrumb Trail.’ At the end, we did ‘Don, Aman.’ We’d never actually played (‘Don, Aman’) until we went in the studio. I’m not sure about ‘For Dinner.'”

Walford said “Breadcrumb Trail” is his favorite song off the album. He said, “I was playing ‘Breadcrumb Trail’ the most when we were reformed.”

After countless hours of practicing, the band was ready to record the album with producer Brian Paulson. “I don’t remember being familiar with his recording before (we met him), but it turned out he was really perfect for what we had in mind. We wanted to do something a little different from Steve Albini. He’s great, but we just wanted, kind of, maybe our own thing, and he kind of does a more particular thing.”

The recording sessions took place at River North Studio in Chicago.

“They were pretty intense, just because, you know, getting good takes. They were really fun, it was a really neat studio. There’s a Survivor song called ‘Eye of the Tiger’ that was recorded there. It was a really neat place,” Walford said. “To hear the instruments in the rooms and to hear the recording in the control room on the speakers was really great. Other than that, it was just intense to get a good take. It was pretty intense seeing Brian sing, because we never had.”

Another factor that contributed to the intensity was time and money, Walford said. “It wasn’t on the forefront of our mind, but I’m sure it made things, you know, more intense.”

The album was recorded in four days, but the band came back to do some mixing on another weekend. Even by their second album, the band did not have a noticeable following behind them.

Walford said, “I can’t think of anybody who was super into (us). It was open shows, or you know, we went on tour and not many people would be there, and sometimes we’d have an audience of just curious people into listening to something different. But there was never a following. We actually didn’t ever play “Spiderland” songs much. Here and there we would, but we never played them live with vocals; it would just be instrumentals.”

Once the album came out, not a whole lot of people paid attention to it outside of Albini, who had given it a 10-star review in “Melody Maker.”

“It’s funny because (Albini) seems like, in some cases, he would be almost, like, behind the times on a lot of stuff. He’s sort of set in his ways, crotchety in a way. Like, he doesn’t care much for guitar solos; he has more particular tastes, so it’s kind of funny that he’d be early and appreciating us before other people would,”  Walford said. “Corey (Rusk, who runs Touch and Go Records) appreciated us before we recorded ‘Spiderland.’ That was a big deal. Then, some of our friends in Chicago who were in The Jesus Lizard, they liked us, and that was about it. We played with some other bands like Killdozer.”

Though the band broke up after the album was released, “Spiderland” wasn’t intended to be the band’s final statement.    

“We were planning on just going on tour and hadn’t really even thought about another record.”

The band broke up shortly after it was released. They have played infrequent reunion tours and shows since 2005. Over the years, the band has gained a larger following, both young and old.

“Young fans, they seem to maybe be familiar with a lot of stuff that I wouldn’t think they would be — to be open to a lot of different kinds of music, including ‘old’ music. I feel like that’s different,” Walford said. “When we were young we were more buried in our own interests and had a more limited range of interests.”

Since the breakup, the band’s members have gone on to play in many different projects. Walford has played in the Breeders (formed by Kim Deal of the Pixies) and Evergreen, and currently plays in Watter. McMahan formed the post-rock band the For Carnation. Pajo played in Tortoise, Stereolab, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Royal Trux. Brashear went on to found Wild and Wooly video store, which closed last year.

“We didn’t think of popularity or even success,” Walford says. “The thing that surprises me the most is just thinking about how, when we were young, people like Steve Albini and Big Black, Hüsker Dü would actually know who we were was hugely surprising to me. To me that’s the huge sort of gap that could be breached. Thinking about the band now, I don’t know, I don’t really think about the band now.”

A closer look at “Spiderland”

“Spiderland” is a very self-contained record that sort of came out of nowhere. The cover of the album (photo taken by Will Oldham) is a black-and-white photo of four young men floating in a quarry. The person looking at the cover might think that the boys in the photo had drowned in that quarry, as if it was destined to be on the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper. The back of the album asks for “interested female vocalists” to write letters to a house located in Louisville. A band with no following, and an album that got many negative reviews when it was first released (Robert Christgau referred to the band as “art-rockers without the courage of their pretensions” and gave them a C+). It seemed like the only guy who liked it was Albini. There was no real hype surrounding it. It was just kind of…there.

Now, it is showered with adulation from just about every music publication, mostly because they recognize it as a Very Important Record that influenced many Great Bands without really saying why it is such a good record.

I think what makes this album so great is how unique it is. Not just musically, but emotionally as well. You can try and work back from the band members’ careers to make sense of how this album came to be, but you would find a couple of hardcore punk bands. You also have “Tweez,” the band’s debut LP, which has hints of what was to come in “Spiderland” scattered throughout (“Darlene”), but for the most part is on a separate plane of existence than “Spiderland.”

Musically, the album has a strange, bleak sound to it that is hard to trace back to any clear predecessors. A technique used in one song may pop up in another. Some of the songs can be sped up to 45 or 78 rpm and still be coherent, with some even sounding relatively normal. The quiet/loud dynamic is taken to extremes. It draws out melodies to uncomfortable lengths and is still able to make something beautiful of it. The group plays trance-like music with tight precision, and what comes out manages to sound both spontaneous and meticulously rehearsed. This album more or less revises the rules of rock music, as opposed to rewriting them entirely.

Emotionally, “Spiderland” is a distilled record. McMahan’s delivery is very raw and open. Upon first listen, the spoken-word vocals can be kind of annoying, but they suit the music very well. McMahan gives off an aura of desolation and hopelessness, and it works. There are not a whole lot of artists that can pull it off this well. Most of the time, anger and depression is masked through a face of irony (Devo, Gang of Four) but the sincerity present in “Spiderland” is powerful.

I’ll go track-by-track, describing the song musically and how they connect to the lyrics, as well as how they form the album as a whole. I have taken a few liberties when it comes to deciphering lyrics, because they can be ambiguous at times.

Breadcrumb Trail: This song begins with a hypnotic, inviting guitar riff that sort of pulls you in to the record, pulling back the drape on the tent that is “Spiderland.” This was an immediate favorite of mine.

The narrator, “looking for the pirate ship,” wanders into a carnival. He meets a fortune teller, but instead of having his fortune read he goes on a roller coaster with her. Looking down, he sees a “soiled man.” At the end of the ride, he says goodbye to the fortune teller and leaves the carnival. The song seems to be about living in the moment, since the narrator chooses the thrill of the roller coaster over hearing his potentially bad fortune.

The narrator looks down at the “soiled man,” but only because he is on a roller coaster. Whether he realizes it or not, he will eventually become the soiled man. I would describe this as the “loosest” song on the album, since it feels very dreamlike in its nature. The music complements the lyrics well. The opening riff makes you feel like you are walking around a carnival with an array of lights shining on your face and myriad strange attractions surrounding you. I also love the drums and bass line on this track.

They play against each other nicely, with the bass slowly buzzing and the drums having a slow but heavy beat. The guitar riff kind of spikes up a bit, and it feels like the drums are sort of pummeling the guitar notes into the air. The narrator makes the decision to board the roller coaster, and a short, tense bridge takes hold while a quiet, fluttering guitar riff grabs the listener. Suddenly, guitars explode as the narrator starts “creeping up into the sky.”

The friendly, relaxed nature of the beginning is gone, and the listener is pulled into a vortex of noisy guitars. Dizziness ensues, and you feel like you can’t find your footing no matter how hard you try: “I said goodbye to the ground.” Then, the narrator sees the soiled man and the dizziness is halted, with a choppy, disjointed riff taking hold. Then the dizziness returns: “Spinning around, my head begins to turn/I shouted, and searched the sky for a friend.”

Then, the disjointed riff returns, followed by a screeching guitar that lingers. The song starts to build up to another explosion, and you feel prepared. It’s the longest build-up in the song and makes the listener brace himself for another full-on assault, but it only amounts to the opening guitar riff. It’s like being surrounded by a pack of wolves, circling around you and growling, but they run away instead of attacking you. The roller coaster ride is over, and you’re on the ground again and are ready to leave. You “walk across the deserted lot” and say goodbye to the fortune teller.

Nosferatu Man: This is the most straightforward rock song on the album. It makes me feel queasy, but in a good way. The best way to describe the feeling of this song is “nightmarish.” You feel lost, confused, and a little terrified. The narrator lives in a castle. He is a prince. He has a queen. He can also turn himself into a bat (metaphorically, maybe).

The song is also called “Nosferatu Man.” The narrator is Dracula (metaphorically, maybe). This may be a continuation of the relationship between the fortune teller and the narrator of “Breadcrumb Trail,” chronicling his transformation into the “soiled man” that he once looked down on. The song begins with a hard-hitting drum fill (no cymbals are used), then a bouncy guitar comes in along with a steady bass line. A sharp guitar riff then pierces through.

The narrator is describing his life: the castle, his “smiling queen,” life is decent. This goes on for a little bit, and then the drumsticks click (three times) and chaos ensues: distorted guitars, crashing cymbals, the mumbling vocals turns to shouting. This occurs when the narrator says “Like a bat I flushed the girl/And I flew out the back door/And I came to no one no more.” This sequence makes me feel like I’m lost in a forest. My heart is racing and I think I’m being watched, but it may just be paranoia.

The narrator then returns to mumbling vocals amidst the instrumental chaos: “She ran without glances/And railed like a red coal train.” Then, we return to the opening riff, with a little bit of distortion lingering for a few seconds before all is back to normal. The narrator spouts off a line from Hank Williams’ “Ramblin’ Man”: “I can be settled down/And doing just fine/Until I heard that old train/Rolling down the line.” Three clicks of the drumstick.

The narrator’s queen disappears and he is set in a whirl. “I set a fire burning/And I railed on through the night” is sung in the typical mumbling fashion, but then becomes a little more clear. We aren’t immediately swept back into the strangely calming opening riff that we are used to. Instead, the nightmare keeps getting worse. We then hear one click of the drumstick (my favorite part of the song), and the band gets even noisier and McMahan’s vocals are reduced to hushed mutterings, getting steamrolled by the pounding drums and guitar riffs, which get locked into a hypnotic groove. Our narrator is reunited with his queen.

“She offered me her hand/My teeth touched her skin/Then she was gone again.” A high-pitched guitar riff jumps in, which then becomes a part of the groove. “Now my queen is fine/In her early grave/After that girl I’ll keep alone/There’s nothing left to say.” The song doesn’t return to the beginning riff like “Breadcrumb Trail,” we are left with distortion and a distant guitar fading away. “Breadcrumb Trail” is a dream that takes a wrong turn but ultimately returns to where it started. “Nosferatu Man” is a nonstop nightmare.

Don, Aman: “Don stepped outside.” This song, my favorite, is the sonic equivalent of an anxiety attack. A somber, slow follow-up to the overload of “Nosferatu Man.” It is told through third-person narration, as opposed to the first two songs. Don is at a party, has a small panic attack, drives home, and comes to terms with his own isolation. After Don steps outside, two guitars start to surround the listener. They give off an aura of uneasiness, as if Don is stepping on eggshells. “It felt good to be alone.”

Once going over “something he had just said/And how stupid it had sounded,” he works up the courage to go back inside. “A plane passed silently overhead/The streetlights, and the buds on the trees, were still.” Once he decides to go back inside, a short bridge pops up, as if Don immediately regrets his decision to return to the party. Then, a menacing, tense guitar line kicks in, and a fire slowly starts within Don. “The light/Their backs/Their conversation/The couples, romancing, so natural/His friends stare/With eyes like the heads of nails/The others/Glances/With amusement/With evasion/With contempt/For being a sty/In their engagement.”

The tense guitar line is getting fierce. The next line really sums up the feel of this song well: “like swimming underwater in the darkness.” Then, Don leaves. On the drive home, he laughs (and howls) at himself. “He felt he knew what that was.” The fire that started is burning relentlessly, with the steady guitar line being upstaged by a heavily distorted line. The distorted guitar gives the impression that it is building up to something even worse, but it grows weak in mere seconds, then disappears completely. Suddenly, we are returned to where we started (just like “Breadcrumb Trail”) and the guitar interplay that opened the song returns.

It was initially uneasy but placed after Don’s lashing out, it is calming. Don comes to terms with his loneliness: “In the mirror/He saw his friend.” I love the little quiver/cry that comes in at the end of the song, followed by the echo of the distorted guitar line that kicked in as Don was driving home. Unlike “Breadcrumb Trail,” this is less like watching an explosion return but more like watching a fire slowly build up to the point where you can feel the heat, and you need to squint your eyes to stop ashes from getting in your eyes. Then it sort of just quells itself.

This is the song I had in mind when I mentioned playing songs in 78 rpm. The guitar interplay becomes a very sweet and pretty melody. But, as I mentioned before, the band stretches that melody to uncomfortable lengths. At 78 rpm, the song is the life of the party. At 33, the song focuses in on the guy who is terrified of parties. Both versions are beautiful, but for different reasons.

Washer: The longest song on the album (clocks in at just under nine minutes). The lyrics are in second person, addressed to a lover — starts out with a reserved guitar line and the gentle tapping of cymbals. Then, all of the instruments close in on you. It’s an overwhelming moment, one of many found throughout the song.

Then, the guitars stop, and we are left with the echo of a chord and heavy drum fills as McMahan sings “Goodnight my love/Remember me as you fall to sleep/Fill your pockets with the dust and the memories/That rises from the shoes on my feet.” The narrator expresses that he won’t return, but they may cross paths sometime in the future. The guitars kick back in, and then the drums steal the spotlight once again. The narrator urges his lover to be strong. “Wash yourself in your tears/And build your church/On the strength of your faith”.

The guitars flow back in, and then a bridge is introduced containing a more rigid, determined guitar line interplayed with a softer line. The drums start rumbling. McMahan sounds like he is on the verge of tears. They build up to a wave of sensory overload. The guitars pour in, and the drums sound like they are stumbling over each other. Once again, we are brought back down to the whispered vocals, slow drum fills, and nervous guitars, only to be pushed back into another wave of noise.

This song makes you feel like you are drowning in the middle of the night. The bridge returns, but it no longer leads to the tingling wave of noise. McMahan delivers these ominous lines: “My head is empty/My toes are warm/I am safe from harm.” The word “harm” is stretched out as the guitars start to gain speed. It culminates in a wall-shaking explosion, with distorted guitars and quick-and-heavy drum fills.

A screeching guitar accompanies them. On the turn of a dime, it goes back to the opening riff (Once again, “Breadcrumb Trail”). The melancholy guitar line returns, and the song ends with a very brief, tinny guitar line, followed by a few seconds of silence.

For Dinner…: This song is the only track without vocals and also the shortest song. It’s a very relaxing song, but is also kind of eerie. If “Washer” felt like drowning, this is being pulled out of the water. The song starts with a moody riff and reserved drum fills. The guitars sort of “come into the light” a bit.

The song, my least favorite, builds up to a very small moment of catharsis, with rumbling drums, steady bass line, and a mounting chord progression leading to a brief moment of shiny catharsis. I like the guitar note that closes out the last minute or so of the song. This song is definitely the weakest of the album, but I’m not sure if it’s because of the lack of vocals. It’s more of an amusing jam than an engaging song.

Though I must admit, going straight from “Washer” to “Good Morning, Captain” could be a little jarring. It serves as the cool-down for the song that came before it and the warm-up for the song that follows it.

Good Morning, Captain: The last song on the album. Lyrics are in third person. The song takes place after a shipwreck. Maybe the pirate ship mentioned by the narrator in “Breadcrumb Trail”? The song seems to be a tribute of some sorts to “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” The shipwreck in question might be the remains of the relationship that we saw crumble in “Washer.” The song begins with a guitar that sounds like it was recorded in a tin cabin. Then, a menacing base line jumps in.

The tinny guitar riff continues, then disappears once the narrator starts to speak. “’Let me in’, the voice cried softly.” The narrator describes the scene of the wreck. The tinny guitar returns with confidence. Drums are pummeling throughout. The vocals come back in and the tinny guitar stops. “’I’m the only one left, the storm took them all’/He managed, as he tried to stand/The tears ran down his face/’Please, it’s cold.’”

The tinny guitar returns for a moment, and then the band shifts into a bridge. The bass and the drums suddenly drop. The guitar sounds like it is spiraling upward. A very brief drum fill occurs. Then, a tidal wave of distortion takes over, with drums and bass back in full swing. Rumbling drums and an acerbic guitar riff come in. In the blink of an eye, the tinny guitar, ominous bass line and pounding drums return.

The tinny guitar is starting to sound a bit warmer. “When he awoke there was no trace of the ship/Only the dawn was left behind by the storm.” The guitar drops and we get the bass, drums, and vocals heard at the beginning. The captain hears a sound tapping at his windowsill. A child appears (perhaps a representation of his former self, before the “shipwreck”). The boy goes pale when he sees the captain’s face (the captain thinks his former self would be terrified at his present condition).

Then, another bridge, another explosion. The tick of a guitar sets in and the band goes quiet, save for the formerly tinny guitar, now playing the riff that opened the song with a softer edge. The tick gets louder and more metallic, then the bass and drums reappear. The tick goes away and the other guitar goes silent. Bass and drums. Vocals set in, accompanied by a guitar riff.

The captain pleads “Help me” to the boy. The boy can’t tell who the captain is based on appearance, but he “recognized the sound. Silently, he pulled down the shade against the shadow/Lost in the doorstep of the empty house.” The bridge occurs, this time with vocals. McMahan whispers, “I’ve been trying to find my way home/I’m sorry/And I miss you.” The explosion feels a lot more potent. Hushed vocals of “I miss you/I’ve grown taller now/I want the police to be notified/I’ll make it up to you/I swear, I’ll make it up to you” are drowned under the distortion.

Then, screams of “I Miss You” match the distortion in intensity. It’s the moment the entire album has been building up to, and it hits hard. The song (and album) ends with a few moments of distortion. Then silence.

P.S.

If you enjoy “Spiderland,” check out  June of 44’s “Four Great Points,” Red House Painter’s “Down Colorful Hill,” King Crimson’s “Red,” and Talk Talk’s “Laughing Stock.”