Cut Worms
Transmitter
JAGJAGUWAR
Everybody loves a chill dude. You know the type: preternatural calm, subtle head nods of approval, flow-going and free. As someone who’s been described as such, I can tell you this with full confidence: Don’t buy it. We’re freaking out like everyone else—we’ve just chosen a relatively frictionless way of dealing with that panic, a façade of chill repose that’s hard-won and tissue-thin. On the surface, this is what songwriter Max Clarke has come to represent. His music as Cut Worms is the sonic equivalent of a sun-dappled leaf on a lazy summer afternoon, the tranquil humid breeze of indie rock. Like a Midwestern George Harrison doing his version of ’50s pop, Clarke’s music has always sounded timeless and polished, landing him on such Spotify playlists as “Vintage Vibes” and “Totally Stress Free.”
I will cop to the fact that this is what initially drew me to Cut Worms, too. Retro without feeling beholden to the past, his songs are inoffensive and, for a lack of better term, nice. His way with melody is endearing and familiar, and yet that sheen has always been a bit misleading. For all the outer charms, there’s always been a sense of impending doom built into the very structure of his work. The sunset may be breathtaking, but so is that smog wafting in from just off screen. “This whole place began to self-destruct long before both showed up,” he sings on 2020’s “Last Words to a Refugee” before adding: “And life will still be what it always was / A drunk dance to the next gold rush.”
If anything, his latest, Transmitter, is even more preoccupied with this feeling—the notion that, just off-screen, something ain’t quite right. Album opener “Worlds Unknown” may begin by channeling a lazy Saturday afternoon and close drifting across a “soft golden hour” tableau, but it isn’t long before Clarke is suddenly alone and confused in the back of a speeding car. Later, imagery of teeth chewing on a styrofoam cup and burned images on a TV screen unsettle even Clarke’s most languorous narrators. “On a clear day, you can see almost forever,” he sings on “Windows on the World,” a notion that might be heartening if it wasn’t so delivered with such deadpan foreboding.
This idea is matched, in subtle ways, by the production itself. Produced by Jeff Tweedy, Transmitter decidedly tampers down the luster of Cut Worms’ past records, grounding aspects of Clarke’s music that once seemed almost impossibly pristine. On one hand, this instinct makes sense, scuzzing things up a bit to match a newfound weariness with the world. In practice, though, it all feels a bit flat. As much as his past records felt timeless—and thus, in ways that didn’t always benefit Clarke, not exactly timely—Transmitter meanders in a middle ground, neither here nor there. The jaunty croon of his previous records might have obscured his true nature, but removing it altogether doesn’t necessarily deepen things, either. “My mind is blank like I’m being erased,” he sings on “Don’t Look Down.” A familiar feeling, to be sure, but not always the most compelling.
