9: Slint – Nosferatu Man

Length: 05:35
Year: 1991 (recorded 1990)
Appearance: Spiderland
http://rapidshare.com/files/167737650/Slint_-_Nosferatu_Man.mp3.html

Spiderland is one of those albums where it’s a bit shameful to pick a track out of context. Played in its entirety its a lot like having a 40 minute nightmare (a nightmare with ghostly angular guitar rhythms, ghoulish dramatically alternating dynamic shifts and spooky irregular time signatures, boo!). On one hand there is no real standout track from this album since it’s so consistently good, on the other that would be Nosferatu Man. While being as pitch-black as the entire album it’s so in a slightly different way: The album mostly has the character of lying on your bed for weeks out of depression wanting to commit suicide while Nosferatu Man gives you the feeling of being trapped in a spider web with a giant, hairy spider slowly, slowly reaching towards you, eventually starting to eat your head. The guitar chorus is almost thrash like, the verses high-pitched dissonant riff scars your ears, Brian McMahans vocals are sincere and frustrated by depression and the low baselines dwelling way down in the bottom ties it all together in a dark aura.