Aquarius.

In some cases, bands soldier on, when a key member departs. Sometimes the band reinvent themselves, instead of desperately trying to recapture a sound that was partially created by the absent member. But sometimes, when a member leaves, it’s like a death knell for the band.

With Silkworm, when Joel Phelps left, the band seemed to falter big time. They made some decent records, wrote some killer songs, but Phelps was the spark, the magic went missing for the most part when he left. But they soldiered on, until the tragic death of drummer Michael Dalquist in 2005. The band wisely chose to hang it up, as Dahlquist was a founding member and his powerful idiosyncratic drumming style was a critical part of Silkworm’s sound.

The surviving members resurfaced as Bottomless Pit a year or two later, and something happened. Not sure if it was going through the death of Dahlquist, or the new members, but this is the best Silkworm have sounded since the Phelps days. And while it may be called Bottomless Pit, sonically it sounds as much like Silkworm as ever. Which in this case is a very good thing.

A dark dark record. Moody and melancholy, introspective, but plenty rocking. The two Silkworms, Tim Midgett and Andy Cohen, still share vocals and songwriting duties, so in that way too, the sound is reminiscent of Silkworm. The drums are simple and solid, the guitars tightly wound, the vocals weary and warm, the second track “Dogtag” might be the best Silkworm song Silkworm never wrote. A muted chug holds the song down, never quite exploding into full on rocking, the tension building and building, the vocals managing to sound so worn and haggard, and yet so emotional The menacing groove of “Dead Man’s Blues” sounds angry and bitter, with a jagged tangled chorus and a killer wall of gnarled guitar second half. “Human Out Of Me” is another brooding slow burner, all warbly falsetto vocals and simple cyclical melody. The record finishes up with “Sevens Sing”, a real strange one, with haunting processed drums, shimmery talk box sounding guitars, space-y effects, all very spare and whispery, distant whirs and wheezing strings, the song never really getting loud or aggressive, just slithering along intensely, sounding like it might never end, a gorgeous, yet tripped out funereal indie rock sprawl.