Slint
Slint is an American Alternative Rock band from Kentucky, usually given credit for jump-starting the Post Rock genre along with Talk Talk, as well as the Math Rock genre. The band formed in 1986 with Brian McMahan (guitar and vocals), David Pajo (guitar), and Britt Walford (drums) staying strong throughout the band's existence. The bassist would always be separate session musicians that would travel with the band.
They released their first album, Tweez to lukewarm reviews in 1989. Then, in 1991, they found their style and released their landmark album, Spiderland, which came on the heels of a year of landmark albums along with Nirvana's Nevermind for Grunge, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless for Shoegazing, and so on, and became very influential to Post Rock alongside Talk Talk's Laughing Stock.
After the album the entire band went through a Creator Breakdown. It is rumored that the brooding sound of Spiderland combined with pressure from the record company caused two of the members to be institutionalized during recording. What makes this especially creepy is the fact that all the band members were in stable mental condition prior to the recording. Nevertheless, this stress affected the band and in 1991 they disbanded. Pajo went on to join Zwan for a while after that.
They've had two reunions. One in 2005 and another in 2007, but no new material is rumored, although they did perform a new song entitled "King's Approach" during their 2007 shows.
- All Lowercase Letters -- The liner notes of Spiderland.
- Brown Note: Spiderland was this for the band.
- Careful with That Axe -- The ending of "Good Morning, Captain".
- Creator Breakdown -- Probably the creepiest example where not an event, but the work itself created the breakdown.
- The worst part? Producer Brian Paulson says the album was recorded in four days pulling all-nighters. No wonder it screwed their health.
- Creepy Monotone
- Darker and Edgier: Spiderland
- Epic Rocking -- "Breadcrumb Trail", "Nosferatu Man", and "Good Morning, Captain".
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: They named nearly all of the songs on Tweez after their parents. "Rhoda" is the one exception, as it was named after Britt Walford's dog.
- I Love the Dead -- "Nosferatu Man." Maybe.
- New Sound Album -- Spiderland.
- Non-Appearing Title -- Almost none of their songs feature song titles in the lyrics. "Washer" being the lone exception.
- Old Shame -- Tweez
- Perishing Alt Rock Voice -- So perishing Brian didn't so much sing as mumble spoken-word narration most of the time, and fell ill due to the strain of yelling the climax of "Good Morning, Captain".
- Spoken Word in Music -- Like narration drawn out as the music gets darker with the narration? You're in luck.
- Step Up to the Microphone -- "Don, Aman" has vocals and guitar by their drummer Britt Walford.
- Uncommon Time -- They are also labeled "Math Rock" for a reason.
- The Un-Smile -- Spiderland's iconically creepy cover shows the band treading water in a lake in an abandoned quarry near their hometown Louisville with deranged barely-smiling facial expressions.
- What Could Have Been -- The band included a message in the inside sleeve of Spiderland saying "interested female vocalists write 1864 douglas blvd. louisville, ky. 40205". They were serious about it and did some auditions, but disbanded before they could do anything about it. They never clarified the matter, but there's a pretty popular rumour that one of the auditionees was a Slint fan called PJ Harvey.
