History Music / Spiderland

[[caption-width-right:350: [[CarefulWithThatAxe I MISS YOU]]]]

* CallBack: The raging guitars toward the middle of "Good Morning, Captain" echo the guitar part of the chorus of "Breadcrumb Trail."
* CerebusSyndrome: While still creepy and having that same horror undercurrent as the rest of the album, "Breadcrumb Trail" at least has some semblance of a positive time and a happy ending. After that, however, the mood of the album plummets immediately and doesn't let up.
* CosmicHorrorStory and GothicHorror: Several songs' lyrics have strong elements of these. Even the ones that aren't explicitly horror stories still have an unsettling undercurrent.

Notable for, along with ''Music/LaughingStock'' by Music/TalkTalk, [[TropeMakers pioneering the genre]] known as PostRock, which would in turn bring about artists such as Music/{{Swans}} and Music/GodspeedYouBlackEmperor to help [[TropeCodifier define what post-rock could be.]] Also brought profound influence on MathRock and underground music in general. The band has since reunited, are touring and are rumoured to be working on new material. ''Breadcrumb Trail,'' a {{Rockumentary}} about the album's recording, was released in 2015.

* EpicRocking: Every song on the album is over five minutes long.

* Britt Walford - Drums, guitar, vocals (latter two for "Don, Aman")

* FaceOnTheCover: The band floating in the Utica Quarry, an abandoned quarry in their native Louisville. Their faces are all you can see of them, adding to the mystique around the group and this album in particular.

* Todd Brashear - Bass

* OneWordTitle

* StepUpToTheMicrophone: "Don, Aman" has vocals and guitar drummer Britt Walford.

''Spiderland'' is the sophomore and final album by American PostHardcore[=/=]MathRock band Music/{{Slint}}, released through Creator/TouchAndGoRecords on March 27, 1991. [[NewSoundAlbum A very marked departure from]] ''Tweez,'' ''Spiderland'' set itself apart by removing itself of traditional hardcore structures, instead focusing on usage of long crescendos and sudden diminuendos (today, the term "Slint Dynamics" is used for dynamics similar to the ones featured on this album) and narrative lyrics delivered in [[SpokenWordInMusic spoken word.]] Fueling the mysteriousness around the album was the TroubledProduction: the entire thing was stressfully recorded over four nights, and singer Brian [=Mc=]Mahan threw his voice and became physically ill after recording the LP's final track: "Good Morning, Captain."

* CarefulWithThatAxe: The chorus of "Nosferatu Man" and the ending to "Good Morning, Captain," the latter of which made Brian ''vomit'' right after.

* ConceptAlbum: Though it's more like a short story collection than a novel. The lyrics all tell tales of alienation. There are also EpilepticTrees that all the songs also have themes of sleep, dreaming, and death, as argued [[http://www.popmatters.com/feature/131474-spiderland-the-experience-of-sleep/ here]]. References to water are also common.

* FaceOnTheCover: The band floating in the Utica Quarry, an abandoned quarry in their native Louisville.

* GainaxEnding: "Good Morning, Captain." Is it real? Is the captain hallucinating? Is the captain dead? No one knows. "Nosferatu Man" also qualifies, as it's never exactly clear what happened to the queen (it's implied that he fed from her and killed her, but this album being [[MindScrew this album]], you can't be too sure).

* TeamShot: One of the more creepy examples.

* TheUnsmile: ''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.

* ConceptAlbum: The lyrics all tell tales of alienation. There are also EpilepticTrees that all the songs also have themes of sleep, dreaming, and death, as argued [[http://www.popmatters.com/feature/131474-spiderland-the-experience-of-sleep/ here]]. References to water are also common.

'''''Spiderland''''' is the sophomore and final album by American PostHardcore[=/=]MathRock band Music/{{Slint}}, released through Creator/TouchAndGoRecords on March 27, 1991. [[NewSoundAlbum A very marked departure from]] ''Tweez,'' ''Spiderland'' set itself apart by removing itself of traditional hardcore structures, instead focusing on usage of long crescendos and sudden diminuendos (today, the term "Slint Dynamics" is used for dynamics similar to the ones featured on this album) and narrative lyrics delivered in [[SpokenWordInMusic spoken word.]] Fueling the mysteriousness around the album was the TroubledProduction: the entire thing was stressfully recorded over four nights, and singer Brian [=Mc=]Mahan threw his voice and became physically ill after recording the LP's final track: "Good Morning, Captain."

* Britt Walford - Drums, guitar, vocals

* FreudWasRight: One common interpretation of "Breadcrumb Trail" is that it's a metaphor for a one night stand. Some of the imagery in the song seems to support this.

-->-'''"Good Morning, Captain"'''

'''''Spiderland''''' is the sophomore and final album by American PostHardcore / MathRock band Music/{{Slint}}, released through Touch and Go Records on March 27, 1991. [[NewSoundAlbum A very marked departure from]] ''Tweez,'' ''Spiderland'' set itself apart by removing itself of traditional hardcore structures, instead focusing on usage of long crescendos and sudden diminuendos (today, the term "Slint Dynamics" is used for dynamics similar to the ones featured on this album) and narrative lyrics delivered in [[SpokenWordInMusic spoken word.]] Fueling the mysteriousness around the album was the TroubledProduction: the entire thing was stressfully recorded over four nights, and singer Brian [=Mc=]Mahan threw his voice and became physically ill after recording the LP's final track: "Good Morning, Captain."

** Can also be seen as this trope when compared to ''Music/LaughingStock.'' Both are the TropeMakers for PostRock with six tracks and at roughly the same runtime (''Laughing Stock'' is about three minutes longer) that reflect [[NewSoundAlbum a change in sound their earlier works had no hint towards]] with a more serious tone, released in 1991 after the bands had broken up [[labelnote: Note]] Technically, Talk Talk were still active, but Webb had left and the band was essentially Mark Hollis at this point [[/labelnote]]. The differences are that ''Laughing Stock'' borrows influence from art rock and jazz, while ''Spiderland'' comes from a PostHardcore background and feels more disjointed and jarring compared to ''Laughing Stock'''s more atmospheric sound.

* EpicRocking: "Don, Aman" (6:28), "Washer" (8:50), and "Good Morning, Captain" (7:39).

* SwitchingPOV: "Don, Aman" is a third-person narration, while the rest of the album consists of first-person perspectives.

* JumpScare: The guitar hook after the second verse (which is featured in the page quote) acts as this.

* ConceptAlbum: The lyrics all tell tales of alienation. There are also EpilepticTrees that all the songs also have themes of sleep, dreaming, and death, as argued [[http://www.popmatters.com/feature/131474-spiderland-the-experience-of-sleep/ here]].

* GainaxEnding: "Good Morning, Captain." Is it real? Is the captain hallucinating? Is the captain dead? No one knows. "Nosferatu Man" also qualifies, as it's never exactly clear what happened to the queen.

* UncommonTime: Comes with being a MathRock band.