Weekly Release Spotlight: These Arms Are Snakes
Posted on 12/14/2008
These Arms Are Snakes
Tail Swallower And Dove
[Suicide Squeeze]
Guitars aren't crunchy enough anymore. They're sludgy, muddy, hazy, and even crispy, but that post-hardcore crunch has ostensibly left the scope of six-string tones in recent musical times. Thanks to the Seattle quartet These Arms Are Snakes, however, there's at least one artist keeping the dream alive. And really, the crunch doesn't end at the fretboard. Singer/scowler Steve Snere's vocal chords offer a similar dissonance beside the crunched-out bass fuzz of Brian Cook and even Chris Common's drumming, which acts as the berserk anchor of every tune on their third release Tail Swallower And Dove.
While this attribute is by far the most prominent, Snere has spent time in Minneapolis as the leader of Kill Sadie in the late 90s before relocating to the Pacific Northwest, proving he's well versed in having his voice rain down vs. having it storm down like a blizzard. Likewise, other members stem from Botch, a math rock staple from an era when people knew what that term meant: darkly impetuous but impeccably controlled. These intense jolts between weird static calms and thrashing climaxes makes the album actually a lot more palatable than it probably sounds in that first paragraph over-referenced with mastication metaphors.
Because not only do these guys crunch more than a king size Butterfinger, they also leave the listener with plenty to chew on and digest. From the get go, "Woolen Heirs" grinds like a steady locomotive on loose tracks, setting the scene perfectly for what is to come: nine more tracks of blood-boiling severity, lined with a clandestine method to the madness. The rhythms and melodies never get as concise and rewarding as on "Red Line Season," though, where bursts of fright explode out of riffs that bend and flex with might. It's finished off with "Briggs," which is downright dazzling, even when the guitar flees from its intro twinkle into a swath of white noise staccato as if to say, "suckers, y'all been crunch'd."
Stream: These Arms Are Snakes - Red Line Season
Written by Chris Polley, Radio K volunteer and host of Now Like Photographs.