Richard Snow - Richard Snow

  by Malcolm Carter

published: 27 / 3 / 2008

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I was confused. It states on the CD inlay that these songs were composed by Richard Hattersley (Snow’s real name) in 2001. And I knew that I had bought a CD way back in 2005 on the Valley label called ‘Tuesday Music’ by one Richard Snow. It turns out that it is the same guy, an Englishman from Nottingham. Now US indie label SideB Music has picked up this album which was originally released in 2002, remastered it, remixed the opening track and added new artwork. You’d never know that this album wasn’t the result of a visit to the studio this year or that it was recorded before ‘Tuesday Music’. Snow is a master at recreating the classic sound of those classic A-list ‘B Bands’. The sound of the Beach Boys, the Byrds, Big Star, Badfinger and even the Beatles is hovering over Snow’s songs. But the thing about Snow is that he can do this better than most. The album is topped and tailed with ‘The Sweetest’; the opening track is the original and the closing one the remix. The opener is just 38 seconds of Snow supplying all the instruments and heavenly vocals on a wordless tune that really should have been on ‘Pet Sounds’. He has extended the closing version to include lyrics and it’s not the first time that I had to check the credits to make sure that the Wondermints or Jeffrey Foskett weren’t involved. This guy really is making the music we had hoped Brian Wilson was going to produce on his last album. The following song, ‘Coming Soon’, is another Wilson sound-alike but it is created with such skill that rather than just sounding like an old Beach Boys song it sounds strangely contemporary. Again, one wishes that Wilson had turned in something like this over the last few years; Snow has even made handclaps an important part of a song again! But, where Snow differs from the rest who are desperately trying to recreate those glorious harmonies and sounds, is that he doesn’t only have Brian Wilson as his hero. On the third song chiming Rickenbackers (and even more handclaps!) bring the sound of the Byrds to the mix (just listen to the guitar break with Snow duelling with himself). This song is the first indication on the album that Snow is more than just another talented musician trying to prove that he can produce those teenage symphonies like the ones that Wilson wrote. ‘Real’ is far from just a clone of McGuinnn’s sound though. Leave that to Starbyrd and The Lears; Snow throws in little snatches of all of his heroes into the mix to produce a sound that is both unique and interesting. ‘Girls On The Tube’ shows Snow’s love of power-pop. It reveals a tougher sound than the preceding songs until the end when he tacks what sounds like an altogether different song onto the last few seconds, but what a beautiful few seconds they are and that is the beauty of Snow’s work; you never know what the man is going to come up with next. There really isn’t a duff song on this album but ‘Hand Me Down My Sunglasses’ is the kind of song that we have heard many times before ; every song bar this one is special and where it might be a highlight on an album by any number of 60's influenced bands it blends Orange Juice with skinny-tie pop. After songs like the sublime ‘Attention Not Required’ which again could have been the highlight on any Beach Boys album post ‘Pet Sounds’, it does show that even Snow can get it ever-so-slightly-wrong at times. Snow more than makes up for it on songs like ‘Pretty Picture’; playing absolutely everything himself including coke can and chocolate tin. It is another chiming guitar driven slice of pure pop which makes one wonder just how one man can be so talented. Snow not only wrote all these songs and played all the instruments bar drums and some bass but he has produced and engineered the whole album superbly. I guess that at some point SideB Music will reissue ‘Tuesday Music’ and there is even talk of a new, third album from Snow consisting of all new material. But it’s to Snow’s credit that one of the best and most important releases of this year so far has been a reissue of his album that is six years old and sounds like it was recorded with loving care just six days ago. Just goes to show that Snow writes and produces music that is timeless. I’m off to get my daily fix of ‘Red Song’; that 12 string and, yep, those handclaps never fail to brighten up a dull day.

Track Listing:-

1 The Sweetest (Intro)
2 Coming Soon (Going So Fast)
3 Real
4 Attention Not Required
5 Girls On the Tube
6 Hand Me Down My Sunglasses
7 Pretty Picture
8 Spiral
9 Haphazard
10 Red Song
11 The Sweetest

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