Album Rating: 5.0

@SeaAnemone; yup. The first track on the EP is great, and as close to Spiderland as you'll get from these guys (without actually listening to Spiderland, of course), which is why I put it on the recommended list.



@CP; Yeah, this album really isn't at all pretentious. No bombast, no grand lyrical themes (they were written at the last minute), no wanking, etc. If anything, it's a very understated album. I also wrote the review like that because of the fact there are only six songs (one of which is an instrumental), and each are rather different from each other. Usually I try not to describe every song, but leaving out any one of these songs in a review would be overlooking an important part of the album entirely.

Now left in darkness, with nothing but a faint trail of smoke left behind to carry you along, the album opens up to challenge pragmatic thought.


Slint are the masters of giving structure to formlessness

@Sloppy - That's fair enough, man - just think there are more effective ways of conveying variance between songs than describing them explicitly.

Album Rating: 4.5

album ruelllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllz

It's ok

Album Rating: 4.5

"Look for music that is meaningless and inhuman"



really? all that stuff about art, i dunno. i don't think art for art's sake is modernism, is it?

Album Rating: 5.0

It's a quote attributed to Gautier, who was an early romantic period artist which could be considered part of the "modernist" movement (modernistic period starting roughly in the late 19th century). It was a commonly adapted slogan though, and James Abbott McNeil Whistler used it a often. He was a big influence on the modernist movement in art.



And I meant inhuman in reference to my statement that music is inhuman because it can express things humans can't, and that one should seek out music that doesn't particularly seek to please humans, but simply exists for its own sake (at least, that's often the most interesting music).

Album Rating: 5.0

This is, without a doubt, one of the most brilliant albums ever created.

Nice review, does the thing justice.

great work man, although I believe the Nietzchian distinction fails to explain the album, which still is a mystery to me and seems to create a weird feeling of nausea that is profoundly unique

these dudes never formed another band after breaking up?

Album Rating: 5.0

The different members went on to play in other bands (Aerial M, The Breeders, Dead Child, Evergreen, King Kong, Papa M, The For Carnation, Tortoise, Zwan), but none of them sound at all like Slint.

Album Rating: 5.0

Holy epic review. Fanfuckingtastic album.

Album Rating: 4.5

they are two distinct ideas. modernism is breaking away from the shackles of tradition. but you are advocating art for art's sake, art with no purpose, no meaning, no context. which is stuff like free jazz and prog rock; unstructured, unfiltered, undigested detritus of the subconscious. which i find pretentious because it claims a significance it doesn't understand. yet you specifically summarise this album as "bleached of all pretension".

you finish by laying claim to nietzche's fusion of reason and chaos, which is again another distinct idea.

the stuff you talk about is massively impressive, but i'm not sure it's coherent.

Album Rating: 5.0

"art for art's sake" is in direct opposition to neoclassical idea that art should be used to enlighten us. So in that sense, it is breaking away from tradition. Though it is more of a romantic phrase, the romanticist movement segues seamlessly into the modernist movement, and could be considered part of the same thing (because a lot of the same ideas are shared).



I claim that "Spiderland" is not a pretentious album because it isn't trying to claim any significance. These songs are structured, and yet, they sound almost structureless in the traditional sense. I tried to point out the idea that trying to analyze this record will result in discovering contradictions. Maybe I should have specifically pointed out that while "Spiderland" sounds as if it has no structure and that it flows freely, it actually is very well structured around somewhat traditional ideas (verses and choruses are apparent in the songs).



The Nietzschian idea of "fusion meets chaos" was the best idea I could illustrate to get across the point that albums like this are seemingly contradictory in and of itself, and there's no better way to describe "Spiderland". Again, Slint is giving structure to formlessness. It shows obvious influence from deconstructionist artists (such as US Maple, or Beefheart) and yet these six songs actually manage to sound like songs. It's a weird sense of familiarity and alien ideas.



All in all, there's no way to describe this album that'll do it justice. You just have to hear it.

Album Rating: 5.0

I think we've all read reviews of albums before and quoted or reworked ideas that we agreed with or gave us new insight. But you've lifted your opening summary word for word!

album is metal m/

“bleached of all . . . bombast”

Uhh the breakdown in Washer is possibly the most bombastic thing in music