I could add another LOST CLASSICS-story here. Upon first hearing the record (not the Spiderland-box – seems to be hard to get your hands on -), I was impressed, really impressed. I was skeptical at first because of the enthusiastic reviews (as people tend to overrate albums from the past). For example: the reissue of Lucinda Williams‘ debut is totally overrated, all her best works were yet to come! But, well, SPIDERLAND deserves every possible praise. It is at times calming, overwhelming, upsetting, terrifying, and skin-crawlingly uncomfortable, sometimes in the same moment. I have to add something. The first time I listened to this record was nearly one month ago. And it was released in 1991. Never too late, so to speak. (m.e.)
Stuart Berman opens up the historic field of his Pitchfork-review with these well-written lines: „Compared to the get-in-the-van, play-anywhere ethic practised by fellow 1980s-hardcore students, Slint rarely performed live, and when they did, it was rarely as a headliner. Interviews were scarce; band photos all the more so. Spiderland – their second, final, and ultimately most revered album – wasn’t some painstaking, Loveless-scaled masterwork belabored over in the studio for months on end; it was a collection of six pared-down basement jams recorded over a single weekend, many of the lyrics rush-written at the last minute.
And Slint were so uncertain of their purpose upon the album’s completion, they actually included a call-out for female-vocalist auditions on record’s back cover, before just deciding to disband altogether prior to its official release. With Spiderland’s chilling, dead-of-night ambience, its predatory rhythmic gait, spine-tingling guitar plucks, and short-story narratives recited in unnervingly hushed tones, Slint had essentially crafted the mysterious soundtrack to their own disappearance.
Even that seemingly innocuous, Will Oldham-shot album cover of the band members playfully swimming in a quarry looks just like the sort of photo you see on an 11 o’clock news bulletin about four local teens who went missing on a camping trip.“ (S. Berman, Pitchfork)