Thursday 31 March 2011

Spiderland (better late than never)

Its been just over twenty years since Slint released their second and last album Spiderland. I only had to hear Spiderland once to realise that the hype about how it’s such an influential and must have album is justified. No I wasn’t one of the very few who bought it when it first came out, and no I didn’t champion it in the mid-nineties when the record was starting to get some recognition, and no I didn’t even get a copy when Slint were being mentioned by some of the bands I liked.
The thing is, is that I only heard it for the first time about a year ago. I was angry with myself. Why wasn’t I into Slint before? Okay so I wouldn’t have known about them when they first came out, but I first heard of a band called Slint about twelve years ago. I could have been listening to them then. And I definitely would have gone to see them play live a couple of years ago on their reunion tour.
Many times I saw the CD in records shops with its very distinctive album cover and thought about buying it. But until a year ago I never did. Oh well, better late than never I guess.
I’ve since bought their first album Tweez. It’s good, nowhere near as good as Spiderland, but they were only teenagers when it was recorded. It sounds like a good demo recording (Steve Albini’s tinny production is a factor) of a band that has potential but needs a bit more time to refine their songs. And that’s what they did on Spiderland.

Get Breadcrumb Trail mp3 From Spiderland Here
Get Pat mp3 From Tweez Here