By the time they recorded Spiderland in mid-1990, the band had developed a complex, idiosyncratic sound characterized by atypical rhythmic meters, harmonic dissonance and irregular song structures.

However, a warm reception from UK music papers and gradually increasing sales in subsequent years helped it develop a significant cult following.

Its instrumental rock sound featured on the EP, which would not be released until 1994, reflected both their new direction and increased musical sophistication since writing and recording their debut album.

[8] In July 1989, two weeks after the release of Tweez, Slint supported concerts by Crain and King Kong at which they debuted early versions of the songs: "Nosferatu Man", "Breadcrumb Trail", "Good Morning, Captain" and "Washer".

"[11] McMahan and Walford wrote the lyrics at the last minute while in studio,[11] although they had worked out the vocal melodies in advance using recordings of practice sessions and a four-track.

[12] The album mostly explored themes of coming of age and anxiety about the approach of adulthood, and McMahan did not want the lyrics or vocal style to be heard by others until the actual recordings.

[11] The album's guitar work is noted for its roomy sound,[16] angular rhythms, dramatically alternating dynamic shifts, and irregular time signatures.

Will Hermes of Spin summarized the album's sound as "mid-'70s King Crimson gone emo: screeching guitar chords and gorgeous note-spinning in odd-metered instrumentals speckled with words both spoken and sung".

[17] Steve Albini, writing for Melody Maker, described the music as "structurally and in tone", saying that the band "recall[s] Television circa Marquee Moon and Crazy Horse, whose simplicity they echo and whose style they most certainly do not".

He considerably increases his range on "Spiderland", incorporating both his earlier whispered and shouting approaches with what Tennent describes as conventional, "actual singing".

Its verse includes a dissonant guitar riff which uses high-pitched notes similar to those in "Breadcrumb Trail" and a drumbeat centered on snare and toms.

The chorus, featuring "jagged" distorted guitar and a beat with "thrashing cymbals with quick drum fills", segues into an extended groove before the song ends with 30 seconds of feedback.

[24] "Washer" is the album's longest track, and features a low volume intro with guitar and cymbals before the rest of the band joins in the recording.

[19] The closing song, "Good Morning, Captain", has been described as a tribute to the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner[26] but the band have denied this.

[16] The song, which Pajo says is his favorite from the album,[19] is built from a two-chord guitar structure, described as a "spindly, tight riff", and a "jerky" drumbeat.

[28] The Stranger credits the image as responsible for the later mystique surrounding the publicity-shy band, and notes how "most people only had seen Slint as four heads floating in a Kentucky quarry on Spiderland's cover.

The words "this recording is meant to be listened to on vinyl" is printed on some CD issues, indicating Slint's preference for analog audio devices.

Edwin Pouncey reviewed it in the March 23, 1991 issue of NME, finding its sound indebted to Sonic Youth but concluding that "something original squirms at the core of Slint.

He awarded the album "ten fucking stars" and predicted that it would rise in stature, writing "It's an amazing record ... and no one still capable of being moved by rock music should miss it.

[52] In the February issue of Select, reviewer Mike Noon praised its "creeping success", but cautioned that the band's sound would take time to fully appreciate.

"It's not surprising these records confused people on first release", he wrote, in part because listeners had been primed to expect straightforward noise rock—a "total red herring" that concealed the band's "alarmingly introverted" sound.

Thompson found Spiderland accessible but wrote that it "demands that you push your head up right close to the speakers (or buy some headphones) if you want to find out what is being said and sung.

"[53] According to biographer Scott Tennent, the laudatory review of the Melody Maker failed to attract commercial interest, but over the years succeeded in rescuing the album from an otherwise-assured relegation to obscurity.

"[56] PJ Harvey included Spiderland in her 1992 "Ten For Today" list of records,[57] while Bob Nastanovich of Pavement ranked it as among his favorite albums.

[61] Pitchfork's Stuart Berman noted how the album "motivated a cluster of semi-popular bands in the late-90s and early 2000s to adopt its whisper-to-scream schematic.

[67] Writing in 2000, Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic, and said that despite their "sad-sack affect", Slint are actually "art-rockers without the courage of their pretensions", and noted that the lyrics were not to his liking.

[35] In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, journalist Mac Randall felt even though it is more accessible than Tweez, "[t]he absence of anything resembling a tune continues to nag".

the musicians' fragile, intertwining guitar lines, mumbled attempts at poetry and uninspiring shoegazer personas were poor matches for the setting and the occasion.

[75][76] According to Vulture reviewer Nick Catucci, their "deeply brooding, fussily-executed album finally sounded, sixteen years later...like the existential, cosmos-annihilating shrug it was envisioned as.