Nashville band, Snõõper, were signed to Jack White’s Third Man Records after emerging as leading proponents of the ‘egg punk’ genre. For those unfamiliar, ‘egg punk’ is essentially punky songs about weird shit. On their debut album they demonstrate why they built that reputation. This album is stupid. And I’m mostly saying that as a good thing.
The album’s runtime is just 23 minutes, with all but one track clocking in under 2 minutes. It’s relentless and restless from the off, as the opener mashes brief song snippets together with the sounds of radio signals and static. That leads into a 30-second song about bed bugs, before the third track gives us the first conventional song structure with verses, choruses and everything, albeit crammed into a 100 second dash. And the album pretty much continues on that trajectory.
They cut a furious pace, with an almost constant onslaught of pounding drums and rapid fire riffs. The vocals of Blair Tramel are urgent yet almost robotic, they seem to wrap around the music, like they’ve been improvised purely to meet the momentum of the jittery rhythms. But the aggression of the music is contrasted by the relative absurdity of the lyrical content, making it both a heavy and a light listen.
The frantic pace combined with the bizarre and seemingly random lyrical content almost give this a feel of a schizophrenic social media feed. You have your fitness influencers (Fitness), gambling ads (Powerball), weird nature (Bed Bugs, Fruit Fly), something educational (Microbe), and a bit of nostalgia (Unable). And that slice of nostalgia makes sense as Snõõper’s surrealistic art-punk feels like an update on the work of cult Californian new wavers, Suburban Lawns, who they cover on Unable.
Now, on the negative side, this album is stupid. There’s very little room for anything to breathe and the goofiness can wear a bit thin. Ultimately, songs that aren’t really about anything, don’t really leave you feeling much of anything. At some point it begins to feel a bit frivolous. Although, their most expansive effort is closer Running. At over 5 minutes it accounts for almost a quarter of the album. The signature drums, riffs and vocal hooks are still there but they’re all slowed down just a touch to maintain a driving chug which veers into a whirling psychedelia. It’s like they sign off by saying “ah yeah, you realise we can do more if we want to”, a reminder that it’s worth coming back for more.
So, like a good old mindless social media scroll, this album might not leave a lasting impact on you, but it’ll certainly keep you entertained while you’re there.
Rating:
Best tunes: Pod, Defect, Unable, Running
Note – this review was originally published in July 2023 as part of a new music roundup post. It has been re-published separately here for archiving purposes.
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