Last week, I was fortunate enough to see Deep Purple in concert.
\nWhile waiting outside the will-call window for my backstage passes
\nwith a few other members of the media, a young man walked up to our
\ngroup and started talking to us. Michael Howard was his name, and
\nhe just so happened to be in a band who had a demo out. Sure, I
\nsaid, I’ll review your band. Just send me your demo… and – bang!
\n– he pulled out a CD from his waist pouch, the charmingly named
\nEach It And I<\/i>. (Say it fast, and you’ll get the hidden
\nmeaning.)<\/p>\n
Snothead’s music has been compared by some to the psychedelic
\ndays of Pink Floyd, and it has been suggested that the best way to
\nlisten to some of this music is to get really stoned and slap on
\nthe headphones. Not being into drugs myself (hell, I’ve even given
\nup caffiene, which was easier than I thought it would be), all I
\nhad available to me were headphones… and I’m starting to believe
\nthat being high is a benefit for some of the music on this disc.
\nIt’s most definitely experimental, some of which work… and some
\nof which fail.<\/p>\n
Of the eight songs on this disc, only half are cuts with any
\nreal vocals. The title track, a tirade against censorship, would
\nhave made the late Frank Zappa proud, and could well be the
\nstrongest song on the disc. (Howard also strikes out against
\nWal-Mart, encouraging people not to shop there because they won’t
\nsell albums with the dreaded “Parental Advisory” sticker. I just
\ndon’t like shopping there because the fuckin’ parking lots are a
\nthree-ring circus, but that’s my own bias.)<\/p>\n
What strikes me as odd about
\nEach It And I<\/i> is that there is a strong undercurrent of
\nanger and violence in the music – something I wouldn’t have
\nexpected from an environmental activist. Tracks like “If I Only Had
\nA Gun” are more controlled, while “Relax” spews venom with a vocal
\nline delivered like Captain Beefheart in a spoken-word style. The
\nmore I listened to these tracks, the better they got, but it did
\ntake some time and patience to let them develop.<\/p>\n
The three “experiments” are the ones that need some work. “Blip”
\nlives up to its name, a short sound bite that sounds like tape
\nbeing slowed down and sped up. But, it’s so short that it’s not
\nworth really complaining about. The same can’t be said for
\n“Modulations: Sinister\/Devine”, a two-and-a-half-minute pastiche of
\nnoise that sounds like Howard was playing with a digital delay
\npedal. It’s incredibly annoying, sounding like he was experimenting
\nwith a new toy to see what it could do with vocals. There are times
\nthat such experiments are best left in the vaults or on the cutting
\nroom floor.<\/p>\n
The centerpiece of
\nEach It And I<\/i> is “Charlotte’s Web Site,” a song that Howard
\ninsisted I listen to with headphones. It’s indeed bizarre, and some
\nof the experiments on this one work better than on the previously
\nmentioned tracks, but it’s still nothing to really write home
\nabout. I will give Howard credit, in that this 10-minute track
\ndidn’t seem to last nearly half as long. I’ve always said, if a
\nlong song seems like it’s short, that’s a good portion of the
\nbattle. What he needs to do now is to put some more substance into
\nsuch pieces, instead of indulging in weirdness for weirdness’s
\nsake.<\/p>\n
\nEach It And I<\/i> is the first effort of a band in progress.
\nWith a little more work (and a little less reliance on gimmicks
\nlike feedback and delay-rich songs and declarations of being so
\npsychedelic), Snothead could well be an electronic-based band to
\nwatch in the near future.
\nEach It And I<\/i> offers slight glimpses of that, but also shows
\nthat Howard and crew have a lot of work to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7546],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-39335","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-snothead","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39335"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}