by Kris Handel (@khandel84)
The new year of 2020 has brought a very welcome reissue of Chicago/Seattle stalwarts Silkworm’s second full length album In the West, after a couple of cassette releases and debut L’ajra. The early days of Silkworm with Joel R.L Phelps joining Tim Midyett, Andy Cohen, and Michael Dahlquist were a fairly different beast, but one that still created music full of energy and liveliness that was infectious. Phelps’ unique songwriting and vocals that could go from a whisper to a menacing howl brought a different musical focus and power that was entrancing, complex and usually darker than his bandmates works. In the West presented a more focused and musically direct recording than their previous work, and it’s a record that immediately caught the ear of anyone paying attention in the burgeoning early 90’s music scene.
“Garden City Blues” kicks off the record with scratchy and muted guitar work working around nimble drum fills and thudding bass drum of Michael Dahlquist while Midyett’s vocals creak and groan with trepidation and ennui. The sparsity of the instrumentation hammers home the fragile looking back at time and previous memories of former places invoked in the songwriting, before raising in crescendos of alternating crunching and chiming guitar while Dahlquist’s forceful drumming locked together with driving bass push toward completion. “Into the Woods” is one of the highlights of the band’s catalog with its mixture of chugging guitar and Midyett aggressively intoning lyrics like “…no cheap history, baby, that I don’t need/but you learned enough to know the revolution’s gonna make you bleed/gonna see your bourgeoise blood staining my white shirt”. The song is full of menace but also never takes itself too seriously, as Midyett manages to sprinkle in some absurdities along the way which works perfectly with the chaotic careening musical breaks.
“Raised by Tigers” lowers the pace a little bit with slinking guitar and bass sliding around while Phelp’s thinnish and trembling nasal vocals break through tentatively before breaking off into a wild yowl around crunching drums and guitar that swoops and soars with Phelps. The power everyone plays with is inescapable and punishing, at their strongest Silkworm aim to pummel their audience with wild emotional turmoil. “Enough is Enough” is another slow burner that plays with soft/loud dynamics to heighten tension allowing for a welcoming release of anxieties and fears. Silkworm prove themselves to be masterful at playing with emotional timbres, which creates a sense of full investment from the listener which few bands can muster so frequently.
In the West is a record full of force and wavering emotions that paints a full picture of the twists and turns life has in store, there’s an unpredictability in the music and emotional ground that is never ending yet never loses total control. Silkworm find a way to navigate chaos and do so with a crooked smile, there is never wallowing in anything they do with their songwriting even at such an early period of the band’s existence. This record is a bit of a whirlwind and introduces the distinct voices of the trio of songwriters who manage to create a cohesive work despite the disparate approaches they work in. The story of Silkworm is one that many “underground” (or whatever perfunctory descriptor you would prefer) music fans are probably familiar but one that never grows tiresome, and this reissue allows for another appraisal of a record that has so many moments of magic. It’s a record that definitely is a bit of an outlier in the story of Silkworm with its intense moodiness and bit of darker post-punk leanings, but one that refuses to budge in its dogged determination towards greatness.