SILKWORM


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Bullheaded, crossbeam-chomping persistence: twelve years, eight full-lengths (Italian Platinum is their first for 12XU), many singles and EPs, innumerable tours, wild fluctuations in the public appetite for their work. That's not to demand that Silkworm be called forward for some sort of alt-culture valor award--their concentrated, seemingly effortless force arises from dogged pursuit of certain virtues that most current bands either don't care about or fudge in the studio environment. Namely: tightness, heaviness, instrumental command.

Silkworm do care, and don't/won't fudge. But recently, starting perhaps with 2000's highly distilled Blueblood, they've passed though these virtues and out the other side. Songs are shorter and often end, without ceremony, the moment their job is done. The emotional heft of the performances always registers first, but the playing is full of jarring, chaotic moments that aren't the results of mere "chops." The same goes for the increasingly ambitious songwriting. Guitarist Andy Cohen and bassist Tim Midgett write separately, and each sings what he writes, but they share a sense of gravity. Sometimes direct, sometimes utterly cryptic, it doesn't have much to do with typical notions of singer-songwriterly "craftsmanship."


photo by Heather Whinna

A notoriously self-reliant band, Silkworm swells its ranks considerably on Italian Platinum. Kelly Hogan (whose own recordings, solo and with The Pine Valley Cosmonauts, are no drink coasters themselves) contributes backing vocals on several tracks and sings the living hell out of "Young," an outsize ballad that has no precise equivalent in the band's catalog. And Matt Kadane (currently chief songwriter/guitarist for The New Year) has become the band's quasi-official keyboardist, troubling the waters with an organ bed here, a glowing piano line there, a greasy clavinet solo on "White Lightning." Needless to say, these are not the choices of a band that's wildly concerned about its rock-purity credentials being revoked--or, really, anything beyond pushing a little harder with each record against what they already know they can do.

Still, Cohen, Midgett, and drummer Michael Dahlquist (who does get to sing now and then) remain at the core of Italian Platinum. You can hear their damn-everything confidence as individual musicians in the drum fills that stagger through "Bourbon Beard," the Neil-Young-meets-Andy-Gill guitar solo that plays havoc with the chords of "(I Hope U) Don't Survive," or the polluted, swaggering baritone guitar on "Dirty Air." As for how they and their guests lock together (and split apart) as a unit, there's no point in isolating moments. In the last analysis, that symbiosis defines this band, and you're better off hearing it for yourself.

Franklin Bruno

* Silkworm recently completed a years-in-the-making relocation to Chicago. They now live in the same city for the first time since 1998.

* Italian Platinum marks for Silkworm ten years of recording with the winsome Steve Albini.


Italian Platinum LP/CD (12XU 011-1,2) coming 10 June 2002

track listing :

1) I Hope U Don't Survive
2) The Third
3) The Old You
4) Is She A Sign
5) The Brain
6) Bourbon Beard
7) LR72
8) White Lightning
9) Dirty Air
10) Young *
11) Moving
12) The Ram
13) A Cockfight Of Feelings

Andy Cohen - guitars, vocals,
Tim Midgett - bass, vocals,
Michael Dalquist - drums,
Matt Kadane - keyboards,
Kelly Hogan - backing vocals, lead vocal on *
Recorded Winter 2001/2002 at Electrical Audio, Chicago, IL.

Engineered by Steve Albini

issued under license from Touch & Go.

photo by Heather Whinna