Bottomless Pit – Hammer of the Gods (pre-review)

Overall Rating: pending Label: Comedy Minus One

Disclaimer: I really, really liked Silkworm’s Libertine. A whole lot. Listened to it over and over. Easily one of my favorite 25 rock albums of the 90’s. Up there with Rodan’s Rusty, Slint’s Spiderland, Huggy Bear’s Taking the Rough with the Smooch, Charalambides’ Historic Sixth Ward, Green Day’s Dookie, Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Harry Pussy’s untitled tour LP, the Archers of Loaf’s vs. the Greatest of All Time, Codeine’s Frigid Stars, Sugar’s Copper Blue, PJ Harvey’s 4-Track Demos, the Pixies’ Bossanova and Trompe Le Monde, Polvo’s Cor-Crane Secret and Today’s Active Lifestyles and the entire 90’s output of the Silver Jews and Spatula. There were songs on Libertine that I found perfect. I would put “Couldn’t You Wait” on any mix I made.

When Joel Phelps left Silkworm, I found their subsequent output lacking. I didn’t buy any copies of any of their other records, nor did I try to wrangle myself any promo copies. I actually preferred Phelps’ Warm Spring Nights to any of the other Silkworm records (got myself a promo). I’m still kicking myself for not seeking out a backup copy of Libertine on CD, and particularly for not picking up the vinyl copy that sat at Poindexter’s for years. I could have had that and several other things instead of the L.A. Free Music Society box set that I never listen to. It still fucking bothers me.

All this is to say that I shocked myself by purchasing this Bottomless Pit CD, new, at full price. A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to WXDU and heard the song “Dead Man’s Blues.” It got me off my ass and over to the computer, logging on to XDU’s playlist to see what this was – it sounded familiar, yet I knew I’d never heard it before. Bottomless Pit – the name didn’t ring any bells. But the music sounded so familiar, that voice singing with a flat, muted quality that somehow still communicated so much feeling, over angular driving guitar intricately interwoven with bass and steady, precise drums. I had a suspicion that google confirmed – this was Silkworm-related.

Later that night on the phone with a friend, I was filled in on the details of the tragic death of Silkworm’s drummer. The next day, I was looking at the Badabing website, trying to decide whether to order one of those Dead C records, or that Bright album I never got, or something from Six Organs of Admittance, or maybe even check out what all the fuss over this Beirut band was all about. Unable to decide, I google-wandered over to the Comedy Minus One homepage and then the myspace page. I hadn’t realized that there was a Seam connection in addition to the Silkworm connection. Seam’s “Autopilot” from The Problem with Me was also included on most of the mixes I made in the 90s, and for several years the Seam/Bedhead/Codeine triumvirate was my music of choice for times when I was particularly depressed. I saw that there was a special offer to include a Silkworm tribute CD that would make a great Christmas present for my wife with the first 20 purchases of the Bottomless Pit CD, and bit the bullet and made my purchase. I e-mailed Comedy Plus One’s head honcho and he was so responsive and nice (assuring me that I had ordered in time to get the tribute CD and telling me “it’ll ship immediately after I get off the couch”) that I didn’t even feel buyer’s remorse.

This is one of fewer than five new CD’s I’ve bought in the past two years, as I’ve been restricting my spending, particularly on music, given the shelves and boxes of music that I’ve accumulated over the years and have listened to less and less over time. By the time the CD arrived (only two days later!), I let it sit for a couple of weeks before breaking it out tonight, knowing that this impulse purchase was bound to be disappointing. Any album that I buy having heard one song only once is fraught with potential disappointment. Add to that the supergroup-of-bands-I-loved-ten-years-ago factor. And then throw the only-new-music-I’ll-buy-myself-this-year factor in there, and I knew I’d be disappointed. Yet I was still hopeful, and in that mood I put it in and listened to it tonight.

The first listen had me thinking that it was a pretty good record, but the song I had heard was one of a few standouts on this relatively short, 8-song CD. I hit play again, continuing to write, and listening with a less critical ear. There are some really good moments on here, and the parts that made me cringe on the first listen seemed not so bad. Instead, the parts that I had liked the first time around I liked even more, and I found myself thinking that this was an album that could grow on me, as the best ones do.

So I’ll be back with more thoughts on this one.