Customer Reviews

Tweez

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I don't know, this album always seemed like a group of extremely talented musicians fresh from Hardcore University trying to work out what to do, left in a studio for a week with Steve Albini eating a sandwich next to the microphones. The first song manages the clever trick of sounding like absolutely nothing else you've ever heard, and at the time I first heard it I was caught between laughing and turning it off. The song starts with one of the band complaining about his headphones not working before being swept away by the music, and culminates not long after with what sounds like someone smacking hell out of a radiator with an industrial spring, joyously shouting 'Oh man!'.

I guess that for a one word review you can interchange 'playful' and 'perplexing', as the band sweeps between styles without worrying too much about choruses, structure, or sense. About half of it is very heavily flanged jazz guitar, which I found (by half way through side two) did my head in, just complexity for the sake of it. They then jump straight into two minutes of death metal, only, y'know, good. Weirdly, even then Slint managed to worm something into your head, even if you're not paying attention. I haven't listened to this album in years (although I'm already thinking I should) and yet I can still remember the garbled words '...that's where the river bends, that's where the silo stands, that's where they paint their houses...'. Slint in a nutshell...you always have the profound feeling, even in their most throwaway moments, that something really bad is about to happen.

Despite that, what I was left with from this album was an infectious sense of fun (albeit with something really bad about to happen). Even if I didn't get with all of the music. Like some bands that came after them, the worst offender being Shellac, occasionally the joke's so studied you wonder if it's on you.

The closer 'Rhoda' is the most interesting song, I have absolutely no idea how they make the sounds they do. A longer version was later included on the split single which, if you're reading this review, I imagine you already know about. Fantastically original, striking music, bordering on the symphonic.

If you buy one Slint album, buy Spiderland, but this album is worth your money if you have an open mind and are prepared to smile along. Maybe the best thing is not to give it your full attention. And then five years later you'll be thinking to yourself, 'my god, I still know the lyrics'. And start looking over your shoulder.

A lot say that this album is better than spiderland, and they could be right. I myself am not sure that such a distinction could be made, the two albums seem to different from each other in approach to really be compared. It is not as if I listen to Tweez and say to myself; `well they were on to something, but they really perfected in Spiderland'.
Tzeez seems to be the product of anxious brilliant minds, it sweeps in and out of different styles and approaches to subject to the point that it might seem disjointed in a way that Spiderland isn't. Tweeze feels contrived (I mean that in the most positive way) where Spiderland feels organic and intuitive. Where as Tweez is a cerebral album, you will feel it your mind, it will other path of meditation for the active listener and then provide `blocks' to the meditation that will confound the passive listeners. It will switch `modes' or deliver musical abstracts that are complex and intelligent. It will slip between careful parody and complete seriousness. I did not know what to make of this album the first time i heard it, where as my connection with Spiderland was instantiations. But this is not album where the band are are searching for the mode that is Spiderland, Slint were simply in a different place, thinking in a different way.

Tweez, is in my personal opinion, one the greatest pieces of music ever created.

independent band. Tweez is an otherworldly experience. It sounds like nothing you've really heard before. Jazzy, clanking white noise, god only knows what some of the bangings and janglings on this album really are. At one point, it sounds like someone tips over a china shelf. This band actually sounds like their name. Very slinty. All the songs are named after their parents, and one bandmember's dog as well. Produced by Steve Albini, whose influence via Big Black is obvious. In the first song, you can hear one of the band members complaining about their headphones to him. It always cracks me up when I listen to it, such a weird way to start an album...as he resigns himself to his broken headphones, the band suddenly pounds into action, letting you know to buckle up. Musicianship is amazing- especially when you consider how young these kids were. This is the superior record of their three.

What can you really say about Slint other than they are masters of their genre. This album is heavy, dense and atmospheric; it moves with a grace all it's own. Tweez contains some of the finest playing around. It's built on pure instinct. This ones a masterpiece.

I don't think it is really accurate to say that Spiderland is a *better* album than Tweez. They are just completely different. I agree with the other review that you hear a lot of Big Black influence on Tweez. Not so much on Spiderland. Spiderland's production is tighter than Tweez, yes. And the lyrics are stories, not anecdotes - it's more melodic, more experimental.
Spiderland takes you on a journey.

Tweez is more of an angsty album, it's raw and aggressive. Lots of noise. It's great! It gets your adrenaline going. I heard Spiderland first, instantly fell in love with it. I would have liked more albums ala Spiderland. But I was just as happy to have found their first album, Tweez. I do admitt that I don't have the same connection with Tweez as I do Spiderland (hence minus a star). It is pretty much the opposite of Spiderland but equally enjoyable, for a different mood/mind set. You have to decide for yourself if that is a good thing. I think it's great when you have a band that can take you in two completely different directions like that. We are also talking about Tweeze being released in 1989 and Spiderland following it up in 1991.

I know this is not the right genre for this, so please don't flame me - but since someone else brought up Nirvana *hides*.. To say that Spiderland is better than Tweez is like saying "Nevermind" is better than "Bleach". (ummn I liked Bleach much better, but that has nothing to do with _this_ review!) When it's obvious, to me at least, that the musicians were still developing where they wanted to go with their sound(s). Music grows and changes, that is what it is supposed to do. However, out of the two albums, I would say that Spiderland is my favorite and if I were introducing someone to Slint - I'd give them Spiderland. But that really depends on the person. If they were really into Big Black, I'd give them Tweez first. It depends on if you're feeling "grrrr" or "swoony". For lack of better terms. yeah, real punk rock of me. ; >

I really get into listening to Tweez not only for it's own merits, but also to experience what Spiderland did eventually grow out of. I think every fan can appreciate that.

If you like Slint, you should also check out Aerial M (multi-instrumentalist David Pajo, formerly of Tortoise, Slint, Stereolab & others, is Aerial M.). If you haven't already, go pick up Tortoise: "Millions Now Living Will Never Die". And Big Black fans should give a listen to Babyland - "A Total Let Down" &/or "Who's Sorry Now".

If you like Slint, you should buy this album. You can never have enough Slint, and there isn't much to begin with. I also recommend grabbing any/all Slint singles you can find.

but not as good as spiderland (or the untitled cd single, for that matter). this is definitely a more experimental album than spiderland, but they don't seem like they have completely jelled musically on this album. there are definite shades of brilliance, but there are also some big mistakes here. buy spiderland first, then if you really like it, buy this album. it won't dissapoint you, but it won't be as good as their second album.

[...]

Brian McMahan quickly formed Slint with friends from Louisville after Squirrel Bait split following their second EP, Skag Heaven, and with Dave Pajo (guitar), Ethan Buckler (bass), Britt Walford (drums) would go on to change, superficially, popular music for an entire generation. Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" may have been the face of the 1990s, but Slint's two albums were the backbone.

Neither post-rock nor math rock, or any other genre was born from the union of Slint, but it was played like very few before it. The amalgamation of one off jazz riffs, musique concrete, psychedelia, hardcore, rigid progressive rock, funk swagger, avant-garde intellectualism, industrial noise, and everything else in between. Recorded in 1987, but released two years later, Tweez (Jennifer Hartman, 1989) was a large step forward for the band, half of which would want to write off Squirrel Bait as juvenilia slop, and for popular music. Slint was not making popular music, but everyone that would in the following decade explicitly or implicitly looked towards Slint. Slint looked towards their parents and Walford's dog to dedicate the 9 tracks.

Britt Walford's parents: "Ron" opens the album, and the world to a large extent, to a wonderful anti-riff; 10 seconds later a little shimmy from the rhythm section, and 10 seconds further the guitars begin cough some molten ash, and after a minute the singer and the band go off in two different directions, neither being shiny; before "Ron" has his say, a little random noises compliment the havoc. Growling and snarling guitars and drums introduce "Charlotte" to the world before McMahan screams from a cavernous isolation as the band erupts and burns out, recycling its abject fatalism.

Dave Pajo's parents: "Nan Ding" is indecisive and worn out but chugs along in a quick frolic through the meadow, a story Slint cannot tell without a violent crash or a halting yelp as the track comes to a close. "Darlene" another pleasant little skip through a story of young love with a background of meandering psychedelic picking until the end as the rhythm tightens, the chords shift, and the intensity heightens only to be unfulfilled, a Slint specialty.

Brian McMahan's parents: Ripped in by a harsh noises and a languid jam "Carol" takes off with McMahan at his limit repeating "past where the river bends / past where the silo stands / past where they paint houses". Halfway through the song breaks in again, upping the tempo until McMahan begins coughing up his soul on the final line, muttering to himself as the band slows down, gets more methodical and introspective, laying out for one more fireball and screeching noises, though McMahan is possessed by this turn. "Kent", the longest track, nearing 6 minutes (Slint packs a punch), teases with some concrete gulping into a swagger from The Meters, kicks into a cute little jam with playful guitars for 90 seconds with a brief interlude until paranoia sets in. An obsessive bass pumps as one guitar floats in the ether while the other is trying to make sense of its surroundings as the singer declares no worries, and the intellectual funk kicks in again with the ethereal guitar floating about the jam, joining in at the end.

Ethan Buckler's parents: "Warren" reheats the hardcore from Squirrel Bait's demise, increasing the intensity Slint-fold, guitars plowing along with the incessant and muscular rhythm before getting cut for more drama, the aftermath, of the singer breathing, with his last breath begging, "O, Jesus, I need those god damned tweezers." "Pat" is juxtaposed by delicate guitars and a propulsive syncopation, before the robotic mantra (exactly like Radiohead's "Fitter Happier"), which signals a quick bit of jazz noodling into a progressive hard rock jam, recycling the jazzy noodling through the outro over the "tweezer fetish" mantra.

Britt Walford's dog: "Rhoda" is the final flicker of the coals as the lava that spewed and poured out of the volcano cool to form the new land to terra form in the years to come.

The neurosis is not new; the playfulness is not new; the angst is not new; nothing is new, but it is more powerful than before, and it will create a wave of "new" popular music focusing on Neu!'s instead of Can's kosmische music; Neil Young's instead of Throbbing Gristle's anxieties; the first half of White Light/White Heat instead of the second half. On Spiderland, Slint will cut out the loose ends and cut a deeper groove into the psyche of the 1990s hard rock/grunge/etc. generation to nestle into.

Spiderland
Skag Heaven
White Light White Heat

This is the other Slint album. It came out before Spiderland, and is more raw and less obsessed with pirate stories. It sounds a little bit like Shellac, which is not at all a bad thing. If you like Slint, and you should, you should buy this album.

With very good reason, Slint's 1991 swansong Spiderland has been cited consistently as one of the most important releases of the 1990s. Its quiet, yet fierce passion was totally unlike either the overproduced pop of the 1980s or the pompous grunge and ultra-mechanical techno that would dominate the 1990s. On songs like "Don, Aman" and "Washer", Slint created romantic meditations of deep despair and backed them up with some remarkable dynamics that made for the most amazing emotion that no band before or since has equalled.

Before "Spiderland", Slint had released one previous album titled "Tweez" that was picked up by their Touch and Go label after being released on Jennifer Hartman Records. "Tweez" has itself received considerable acclaim, though never so much as its fabled successor. However, for those who are interested in Slint as a precursor of post-rock, "Tweez" for the most part is best described as rather disappointing because much of it, apart from the spoken vocals of Brian McMahan, is in fact very generic thrash metal with none of the amazingly beautiful acoustic touches that allowed "Spiderland" and even the Slint EP to move amazingly far from the generally noisy and overblown character of such music. Such a song as "Warren" is a perfect illustration: even the vocals could easily come out of the most annoying clichés of death metal because McMahan speaks in such a way that he comes of like an announcer. Even the tempo changes are copied from other artists of the genre. "Ron" is very similar in the way it moves from a slow piece to thrash and McMahan screams in a way that could be most heavy metal singers. Even the lighter "Nan Ding" never manages to catch fire like Slint were soon to do, and "Carol" is no advance on "Ron".

On the other hand, there are tracks such as "Pat" on which the basis with which Slint would during the rest of their recording career make some amazing music is firmly in place if never so well developed as on the epic songs of their second album. The touching "Darlene" is similarly good and is the most similar track to "Spiderland" here: indeed the acoustic guitars sound much more "spidery" than anything on their second album. When Slint could integrate the two styles they play on the various tracks of "Tweez", we would soon see something that could hardly be expected here. On the whole, though, "Tweez" must be rated a disappointment, with far too much generic thrash - a style I will admit to having distaste for.

The often-cited underground heroes Slint are a bit overrated to put it lightly, but no less important for it from a production aesthetic vantage. Already with this intriguing, garage-y debut, the band's short-lived sound, from this more playful but equally experimental angle, sounds instantly recognizable, debuting as something of the missing link between Primus and Police. The problem is that, despite obvious and often bursts of brilliance, a fragmented nature gets the best of these songs and contributes to its distance.