The Worm Has Turned

"The Worm Has Turned" was written in Rebecca Vernon's "haunted" basement and it shows. The songs are urgent and confrontational yet they labor and still fail to escape the dirgy tones they are weighted under. It is as if the spirits in the basement insist on plaguing these executions with their depressive mark....or something like that. The maddened violin instrumental "Inkfish Dirge" is the purest showing of said spirits. But perhaps so is the following "Rapunzel" with the silent and dim cries of "Help me! Help me!" SubRosa do quickly create a turgid atmosphere that gets boggier the further you listen. The songs take on all sorts of nuances; punk-laden, whimsically folky and alternatively doomy. It is all too, too good.

The non-production of the whole thing adds more charm and engagement for the listener. The guitar playing is both sparse and thick. It circulates around the songs without ever giving them specific definitions but that isn't a negative in the least. These are songs that simply need to be expressed, not musically maneuvered, and that natural urgency is what makes this record all the more worthwhile.

I do feel however, that the true highlights come in the second part of the album. The musical aspects are more reinforced then. There's more forceful drumming on "Colder" for example which lifts the song's plaintive quality out of the mundane. "Force"'s humming riff is etched with demonic bass that cuts its spectacularly against the vocals. "Mirror" captivates with its tale of womanly woe delivered so achingly;

One day my husband came back from town
Said honey, you better sit down
There's been another woman for all this time
She's my one true love, can't get her from my mind

Now I break my back from crack of dawn
It's midnight when I get home
There never seems to be enough to eat
And I listen to my children cry themselves to sleep.

The band's more grungified shades would be developed better on later albums and they are a tad muted on here. There are also anthemic moments on tracks like "Self-Rule" and "Jailbreak" which is about exactly what it's called. It's all very nostalgic and deeply charming. SubRosa are a band with personality. They are whimsical and self-aware and know several interesting ways around a song. Good to hear they had this in spades even on a bare-bones showing such as this.