Labels: Swami
Review by: Andy Malcolm
FUCK! Yeah, this is the kind of record that makes me want to say fuck a lot. Excuse my language, but I guess my vocab isn’t so great. Whatever. Hot Snakes rock. And rock in the rock sense of the word, not that they are just merely rocking. This record is all powerful drumming, urgent shouted vocals, driving guitars and it’s totally the whole boom. Guitar riffs are repeated over and over, pounding into your face and making you leap about, whilst everything is just flailing around. If you aren’t bouncing off the walls and playing air guitar moments into hearing opening track “If Credit’s What Matters I’ll Take Credit” then, I guess this album isn’t going to be for you.
Ok, I made it through a paragpraph. I guess about now is the time to tell you that this band has two members of Drive Like Jehu in it. Fuck! Yeah, that word again. I only recently heard that band, but to be honest, they are about as an essential a group as you ever must hear. Snakes have some of elements of Jehu, the vocals are sung rather than screamed, having a more sneery, rock’n’roll attitude, but the songs do drive and blast for the most part. The difference is that the Snakes are a fair bit more straight forward, the guitars are less complex, the whole thing is less hardcore, and they throw in a little indie rock influence on one or two songs, such as the massively great “10th Planet”. There are tracks that stop this record being a classic, “Salton City” is a bit lacking, cool drums, but it never gets going. And the layout on this record sucks. I also hate how there is no run out groove on side 1. I forgot about this. And discovered the disk was still spinning 18 hours later. Whoops. Don’t think that did the stylus much good.
As an extra note, one of these guys is also Apollo from Rocket From The Crypt. And that guy has great vocals. He doesn’t contribute much here, but you can spot when he does such as some brilliantly cool backups and whoops on the brooding “Our Work Fills The Pews”, and singing the wonderful “Mystery Boy”. Is it too easy to say that this album sounds like a cross between Rocket and Jehu? Yeah? Well I’m taking the easy way out.
My most played album since Milemarker, making this is the 2nd best record of the 2thou. If I had a car with a record player instead of a tape deck that makes all cassettes sound like half-assed demos recorded in mono so that they only play out of the right hand speaker, I would drive to this, loudly. And shout FUCK! a lot.