Snailgun’s debut album oozes with post-punk delights.
Snailgun. It’s not an organic long-range weapon; they’re a band - and one that is well worth hearing. In case you haven’t heard them, the best word to describe them is: ‘electric’. In the words of Stacey Ratti: “This is post-punk noise rock as tactical weaponry…” (Bad Bitch Magazine #6).
On their new album, Glass Walls, they bring forth a collection that demonstrates there deft blend of abrasive guitar slashing and bubbling melodies.
@snailgunband Glass Walls
Opening with SD, the garage-rock guitar riffing and incessant drum beat start this album off with a bang. You’ll be bobbing your head along instantly with this groover.
Labyrinth is a movie starring Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie. and is also the title of the second track. A groovy bass line underpins this tune, with a vibe of being running around a maze like that one Windows 95 screensaver (remember that?). An alto saxophone comes in for extra zing, Fun House style. Pure energetic rock & roll, this one.
Straight Ahead comes on straight ahead with a wiry, electrical charge of shouts, pick scrapping on jagged metal pieces and stomping down on dusty ground where the sand becomes fine powder. The song runs through on one-hundred percent and never lets up.
The fourth track, Shadow Operator, takes us to a dark-wave industrial zone, a place of lights shining through a foggy morning when the sun has only just begun to rise and the sky is of a hazy, darker shade of blue. A place of shadows and colour, repetition of a known process, but with a twist of movement into somethings that are only heard once.
Midway I & II is in an almost dance-punk mode, with rolling bass and tight drumming. The guitars wrap around like barbed wire through green leaves. Then franticly shouted vocals crash in, adding to the frenetic energy that is conjured, like a runaway forklift in the ‘Mad Max’ universe.
It’s Called Fear comes next. It’s like a dance on coloured thumbtacks, violent yet vibrant, you’ll be moving and jumping because you have to. Exhausted by the exertion of dissonant sonic energy, yet satisfied by this perfect statement of sound.
Screamy Cat brings the album to a close with a grungy, swampy stomp. Visions of a concrete jungle in the next one-hundred years? Perhaps. Or maybe I’m thinking out-loud, but it’s hard not to when listening to something that brings together sounds so strongly. Whatever the case, this is good stuff.
So listen up - do you want to hear something worth listening to? Something to run headfirst into (without the risk of serious injury)? Then go and listen to Glass Walls by Snailgun. Don’t lose your head, otherwise you can’t use your ears to hear the music, and that would be a shame.
Glass Walls is out now on Bandcamp, as well as on LP and CD.
They will be performing live at Cactus Room on the 2nd of May, with a killer lineup including International, Waxman and No Hoper.
Tickets are available here.