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Album Details

• Artist: Silkworm
• Album: It'll Be Cool
• Label: Touch & Go
• Year of Release: 2004
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: shale on 2004-12-09

It'll Be Cool is Silkworm's ninth album, and finds the band working once again with Steve Albini, their engineer of choice for over ten years now. Between Albini's signature distortion and the band's typically eclectic writing, there are few surprises here. Every one of the eight songs on It'll Be Cool is impeccably arranged. Every song is lyrically fascinating, if occasionally awkward and - well, there's no other way to put this - odd. The overall sound is more experimental than recent Silkworm releases, interspersed with discordant guitar, piano and voice effects that run from moderately interesting to downright annoying. There are a couple of gems on the album, most notably Xian Undertaker with its mandolin and slightly drunken bar room piano (Matt Kadane returns on keyboards for his third stint with the band). But when it's all over there's really nothing on this album that stands out. If some bands pursue the ultimate, perfect hook for every song, then Silkworm prefers the anti-hook: steady, solid performances that you notice at the time, but forget soon after. It's the kind of work that ends up on your CD shelf, never drawing enough of your attention to be played, until one day you put it on out of curiosity and think, hey, this is pretty good, why do I never listen to it? and then put it back on the shelf for another indeterminate length of time.

Fans who came on board with Silkworm's last release, the highly accessible Italian Platinum (2002), will probably find this album difficult to appreciate - if you're in this category you're better off going backwards instead, to Lifestyle (2000) - and it's not likely to win the band any new fans. But long-time Silkworm aficionados will still find it an indispensable piece of the band's catalogue.

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