3 out of 5

Label: Touch and Go

Produced by: Tim Midyett (recorded by)

Silkworm’s use of mandolin – or what sounds like one to me – on It’ll Be Cool killed me. It was such a complement to the group’s layered rootsy rock by that point, further advancing their emotional reach and generally expanding their aural palette without doing some overblown full band thing. We’d had a preview of that on preceding EP You Are Dignified, which stripped the group down to drumless acoustics, having them work over five covers in their seemingly simple but inimitable style.

The tunes poke at the various genres in which Silkworm has existed: the meaty heft of Shellac; the indie shamble of Pavement; the Americana folk of Robbie Fulks; it’s appreciated that while the group selected from a range, they also stayed pretty modern, preventing this from being a full-on nostalgia exercise.

My first visits to this definitely got caught up on the muted-but-loud take on Shellac’s brutal Prayer To God, but that’s an unavoidably attention-grabbing tune; as time has gone on, I’ve warmed to the more jangly parts of the disc, and accepted its unevenness.

The Shellac tune is one of the latter, I’d say. It’s a strong tune, for sure, and performed with the power of this more intimate style of recording – voices and unplugged guitars – but it feels a bit tonally odd overall, and stands so far outside of the other styles covered, even when acoustic, that it doesn’t sync well. It ends up being more of a “fun” cover than may have been intended, whereas the other tunes feel more revealing.

Pavement cover “And Then…” is perfection, reminding how great of a pair the Silkworm team made with Malkmus; and Robbie Fulks cover “Let’s Kill Saturday Night” would’ve worked on It’ll Be Cool – a sobering “celebration” of everyday life. Closer That’s All There Is, from Nina Nastasia’s ‘The Blackened Air’ is a rich, emotive tune – ebbing and flowing with spotlights on vocals and guitar – but it feels like a slight miss in terms of nailing the song’s power, the Silkworm boys perhaps not quite finding the heart of the song, and just covering it.

In last place is the Bedhead cover: Lepidoptera. I was never able to get much into Bedhead – though I did okay with New Year – and this track has suggestions of why that might’ve been, pairing (to me) relatively empty narration with a lack of a strong melody. The SKWM team highlights unique elements of the song, but it still feels held back from the start by weaker source material.

There are definitely enough highlights on this EP to encourage its place on my playlists now and then, but there’s so much potential in the concept that I can’t help but wish it played out more consistently, though familiarity with / appreciation of the original songs may increase or decrease one’s takes on any given track.