Cut Worms at Mercury Lounge

Max Clarke taught himself to play and write music at about age 12, shortly after his mother bought him a guitar for $5 in a garage sale in his home town of Cleveland, Ohio. Leaving behind a promising career in baseball, Clarke studied illustration while attending college in Chicago, Illinois, but then drifted from that trajectory as well to exploring the potential of a career in music. Clarke adopted the nom de plume of Cut Worms from the line "The cut worm forgives the plough" in William Blake's Proverbs of Hell. Clarke relocated in 2015 to Brooklyn, New York, and under the name Cut Worms released an EP in 2017 and a debut album, Hollow Ground, on May 4, 2018.

Performing as a four-piece ensemble tonight at Mercury Lounge, Cut Worms performed a quirky, indie folk set that resonated with low-fi resilience. Clarke strummed an acoustic guitar, and his musicians provided bounce and roundness, but the songs remained rather stark and under-arranged. There was something charming about this simplicity as it accompanied Clarke's affinity for evocative storytelling. Clarke's vocal delivery was almost plainspoken, lacking emotional drive, and the weighty reverb in his microphone further distanced the potential romanticism of his poetic lyrics. These lyrics captured gravity and darkness, but the overall breezy and whimsical delivery seemingly masked an obscured shadow side. Not quite a tug of war, Cut Worms is deeper than it sounds.

Visit Cut Worms at www.cut-worms.com.