By Gruesome Greg
Of all the ways you could illustrate such a simple album title, Snail chose to do so with a blood orange surrounded by green foliage. Interesting, to say the least.
Musically, the band employs soaring vocal harmonies reminiscent of Torche to significantly slower, sludgier accompaniment. They thank Fu Manchu and Nebula in the liner notes, and have a song called “Sleep,” if that gives you any ideas.
That being said, Snail isn’t your typical tune-in-and-drop-out stoner band. There’s something more interesting in this collection of tunes, something in that juxtaposition of the sweet vocals and heavy riffs that has my head nodding in approval. After a solid 20+ minute pummelling, “Relief” ends the A Side with some trippy hippy shit that sounds like the BJM on crack, then the title track kicks off Side B with a tune that’s Blue Aside meets Seattle grunge. (They do call the Emerald City home, FWIW…)
“Cleanliness” features a sing-a-long chorus of “Get high!” delivered amidst a wall of guitar fuzz in true stoner-doom fashion while “Screen” tells you to “Grab another friend, have another rail…” Snail is not big on lyrical subtlety, to be sure, nor do they tread lightly with the big, lumbering riffs on this record—a solid listen in my books.
(MeteorCity)
