This guitar-based pop, produced by Jeff Tweedy, is a departure from previous work.
Cut Worms is singer-songwriter Max Clarke, originally from Ohio, but now living in New York. This is his fourth full-length album after Cut Worms (2023), Nobody Lives Here Anymore (2020) and Hollow Ground (2018). The album, produced by Jeff Tweedy, came about as a result of Cut Worms supporting Wilco in 2024. The two seemed to share a strong musical understanding, and Tweedy invited Clarke to record at The Loft in Chicago.
The album is a change from the breezy pop of the first three albums. There is less vigour, swing and soul, and also little of the country influence heard on them. It is very much guitar-based pop, with less variety in the instruments used, with much less piano and pedal steel, for example. There are echoes of The Beatles, The Kinks, The Beach Boys and, not surprisingly, Wilco at various times. A number of songs have chord changes similar to those of later Teenage Fanclub, though usually without the harmonies.
It feels as if the lyrics come from Clarke, but that Tweedy has had a strong influence on the music in collaboration with Clarke: “Transmitter took shape as a dialogue. While (Clarke’s) voice and writing formed the framework, Tweedy’s guitar and bass lines sketched the rooms the songs inhabit”. This is often one guitar strumming chords, with another providing nice, gentle fill-ins or jangles, with Tweedy playing guitar and bass on many tracks. The melodies are good and memorable throughout.
Worlds Unknown starts the album very well, with the picking of the lead guitar ringing out. It is a tale of unrequited love, beautifully told and with no self-pity- it’s not Morrissey. It starts with some wonderful imagery: “In the soft golden hour, out of the crystal blue/ From around the corner of my street arises/ This vision of you/ You were walking with your best friend, you were waving hello/ And you turned back with a look that made my heart pound till it broke”. But then heartbreak comes, as it can: “Oh no, how could it be? How could it be? You’re looking right through me”.
From then on, the lyrics are rather downbeat, “Guess I’ve been downhearted lately”, and this is understandably mirrored in the vocals, which are less lively than on his previous albums. They have a nineties-slacker feel to them. Clarke seems to be struggling and low, albeit with a love that helps him through: “I can’t handle the truth/ Can’t stand the sight of anyone/ But I feel alright with you”. His weariness comes through with, “There’s no place left to hide/ Now I’m too tired to run” and again with, “I get tired all of the time now/ Feel like sleeping in the middle of the day”.
An interesting backdrop to these words comes from Clarke, who says: “On view are the unseen inner sanctums of quiet daily life—the private worlds that people inhabit, where they don’t or can’t let anyone else in. It is not a uniquely American phenomenon, but it does seem prevalent here, rooted in the mythos of rugged individualism and the idea that each person must be strong enough to make it on their own or die.”
This departure from previous work is a worthwhile project which is a good listen and reflects well Clarke’s thoughts, moods and emotions at the time.
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