Brian McMahan was one of the key protagonists of the 1980's post-rock scene, busy keeping together the glorious Squirrel Bait at first, and then prophet of the most influential post-rock band of the following decade, the Slint. Helped by Tortoise, he brought to life For Carnation that released an EP. Months later, the line-up had already changed completely. The music is what you would expect from Slint if they were still around: the subsonic bellow feeds from pauses, not sounds.

On the first and very hesitant EP, Fight Songs, (Matador, 1995) the long and tender Grace Beneath The Pinesand the martial Get And Stay Get March ,reveal the group's slow and extremely quite style.

The majestic Marshmallows(Matador 1996), with its six complex and subdued compositions, shows through the weight of the band's potential. The dreamy ballad On The Swings, the delicate piano elegy Marshmallows, the tiptoed waltz and the light crescendo of Salo stand as masterpieces of understated emotions. The culmination of their desolate and grieving dramas, close relatives to those by Tim Backley or by David Cosby, is maybe found in the set up, all shadows and hinted reminders, of Winter Lois, between haggard baritones, tinkles of chimes and industrial noises. The only passionate moment is the pressing dissonant raga of I Wear Gold in which one can imagine the Velvet Underground of the year 3000. The long, plot-less trance of Preparing To Receive you closes the record, as monotonous as waiting to die on a deserted land. The armonies are flat surfaces, very carved and slightly deformed by echoes and by microscopic timbres. The singing is always in a trance, about to dissolve in the apathyic tones of a moan that does not hurt anymore. Only six songs. Enough to keep a myth alive. McMahan is one of the major musicians of this age.

The two EPs were collected on one CD in 1997 as Promised Works.

For Carnation (Touch & Go, 2000) relies on a solid line-up which backs Brian McMahan with Michael McMahan (guitar), Bobb Bruno (guitar and keyboards), Todd Cook (bass) of Sonora Pine, Rafe Mandel (guitar, keyboards) and Steve Goodfriend (drums). The sound is even sparser than on previous releases, the dynamics even subtler. The eight minutes of Empowered Man's Blues approach slow-motion funeral music: drums hardly drum and guitars hardly ring while McMahan begins to whisper his story (think Tim Buckley fronting Portishead) but then, somehow, the dirge mutates into quasi-minimalist bass figures, dilated drumming tempos, violin wails, electronic noises, and the voice is suddenly propelled in noir melodrama (think Nick Cave sleepwalking into the set of "Twin Peaks").
The band drowns the depressed confession of A Tribute To, into a syncopated dance groove, a repetitive guitar figure and a lively repertory of ghostly noises.
Tales emerges from a nightmarish beginning to a psychological tension created by aggressive drumming and dark keyboard motives. Over eight minutes, the thick texture creates the kind of suspense that the Doors or the early Pink Floyd would generate in their extended jams.
Moonbeams, the longest track at nine minutes, features the most tender melody in an extremely slow crescendo.
The light swing of Snoother is the closest thing to a conventional song.
Being Held is an instrumental track that simply builds a rhythm around a ringing guitar tone. This is music of extreme patience and intelligence, that shows no passion and no emotion because it is not interested in short-term dividents but in long-term investments: only at the end of a song one realizes how many things took place, only at the end of the album one realizes how much richer the world of music has become.
The background of dissonant keyboard noises may be the most original component of the scores.

Todd Cook was also in Crain with guitarist Tim Furnish, another Louisville band that released Speed (1992) and Heater (1994). Furnish then formed Parlour and recorded Octopus Off-Broadway (Temporary Residence, 2002) with bassist Connor Bell and drummer Todd Hancock. Parlour's Simulacrenfield (Temporary Residence, 2010) featured a different line-up around Furnish, and delivered the jazz-rock elegy Destruction Paper and the eleven-minute jam Sea Of Bubbly Goo.