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Album Details

• Artist: Spider
• Album: The Way To Bitter Lake
• Label: spidersongs.net
• Year of Release: 2007
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2007-02-03

Spider certainly bow to Nick Drake here, and to New Weird America freak-folk, but their approach is so gentle and sincere, it avoids the many of the “I’m being deliberately infantile because it is sooo pure” b.s. of some of the Davandra-lovin’ crowd. Being an Outsider because you can afford to is what killed the 60’s, right? You’ll know when you see the freak-folkers on reality shows and VH1 patheti-mentaries. The subject here though, is Spider, and they are the real deal.

Spider is the alias of one Jane Herships, and her voice places here in easy reference territory, most easily Gillian Welch. Like Welch, she is restrained but authoritative with her phrasing, and while she quotes Drake a little too often on the acoustic, she accompanies herself with passion and emotive grace. “Don’t Be Afraid, I’ve Just Come to Say Goodbye” is the best example of her vision: short, measured, able to explain a personal history in microcosm. Herships is sincere, direct, and explores a narrative that is her own, not one watched from the fringes and adopted as one’s own.

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