Classic Album Review: Silkworm | Lifestyle

This got here out in 2000 — or at the least that’s once I bought it. Here’s what I stated about it again then (with some minor modifying):

By rights, these Seattle-via-Montana post-punks ought to have been on a downhill slide since 1994, when co-founder Joel R. L. Phelps left for a solo profession. Instead, they’ve advanced into maybe probably the most important and constant indie-rock bands on a slowly diminishing scene.

Combining the unkempt guitar slack of Pavement with the no-frills punk romanticism of Sebadoh and Paul Westerberg, Silkworm’s remaining trio handle on this eighth full-length to create an album that’s each hooky and uncommercial, understated and overwhelming, loose-limbed and intense, considerate but restrained. Even their rockiest tunes ring with melancholy, whereas their slowest dirges cling to an undercurrent of optimism. Plus their piano participant provides the entire affair an Exile On Main St. vibe — AND they convert Faces’ Ooh La La right into a spare, wobbly gem that stumbles towards perfection. Just as Silkworm proceed to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=videoseries