Labels: Victory
Review by: Tony Era
Apparently this is a collection of demos and unreleased tracks but to be honest I have no idea other than this is not supposed to be an album.
I was quite wary of this after the disappointment that was “End Transmission.” Not to say that album wasn’t great because it was, it was a disappointment compared to the previous two albums which are simply phenomenal. The main criticism I’ve heard about Snapcase is people don’t like the vocals but to me if that’s the worst people can say then it doesn’t bother me at all.
However, I think my wariness was not completely unwarranted. The first track is a drum and bass hardcore track, WHAT!?!?! Sounds like a wank around to me. Alas the album continues but always with the feeling that these songs weren’t good enough for an actual album because they aren’t good enough. The songs have been left at a demo level which is fine for some but it simply doesn’t work when you have a sound like Snapcases. Some songs even sound too familiar, I know most of there songs are repetitive in the Helmet vain but if I could be bothered to study it closely they have probably used the same riffs in again better songs.
Only song 8 Depth of Field gets a lot better and back to what they are good at. But one song out of 12 simply doesn’t warrant this release. Not even close.
There are barley glimpses on here of what attracts me to Snapcase, the monstrous riffs, supreme emotive drumming, and well used and sparse electronics. Put bluntly and simply this stuff had a demand to be heard but doesn’t deserve to be heard, which unfortunately is a cash-in in my books. Some bands release these stop gap things and some are good, this is not. This has tarnished a great career and I hope their next stuff is much, much better than the stuff on here.