Slint

As the story goes, Slint released their second album Spiderland in 1991 and the blizzard of that year followed shortly thereafter. It is quite possibly the most chilling record you'll ever hear, cold enough to freeze moments of your life like so many empty bubbles trapped in ice. Slint songs spool out yards of slack to hang yourself with, using long, tense tempo builds, maundering vocals and half-nodding guitars to set an uneasy half-dreaming/half-awake mood. It has the effect of leaving ample blank space to paint your own fears into. Taut, minimalist songs like "Don, a Man" list precariously alongside epic hallucinations like "Breadcrumb Trail" and "Good Morning, Captain." The manifold textural shifts and erratic mood swings of their songs left critics grasping for accurate labels, some settling on the pathetically inadequate "New Prog." Labels aside, Slint's success lay in their ability to render into music that crippling romantic malaise which transforms young people, usually in their early twenties, into giant nerve endings which feel only pain. They released three recordings in their brief career, but for sheer implosive gravity, Spiderland stands alone.