Staring down the ugliness of a gray, disappointing world where, as they put it in "Cannibal Cannibal," "it takes a lot of nerve just to get up in the morning" is what inspires guitarist Andy Cohen and bassist Tim Midgett. But there's a fair amount of subtle, wickedly dark humor on Firewater if you bother to read between Steve Albini's spartan production and lines like "He gets drunk while I chase fame" ("Slow Hands"). And there's beauty in the way Cohen's angular guitar thrashing, which calls to mind the exquisite tension of Television, rises above the despondent din of an intensely bleak backdrop, just like Tom Verlaine's "Venus de Milo."

-- Matt Ashare

(Silkworm headline T.T. the Bear's Place this Sunday, April 7.)