Hot Snakes - Suicide Invoice

  by Anthony Strutt

published: 7 / 8 / 2002

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Review

I love anything that has to do with Swami Records.  And that’s because Swami has everything to do with John Reis.  Reis has his musical hand in some form or another in a number of musical pies:  Drive Like Jehu, Rocket from the Crypt, and my current favourite, the Sultans. He is also producer extraordinaire to luminaries like Superchunk, and essentially creatied Swami Records if for nothing else than to produce his own stellar music the way he wants it produced and recorded.  Which is not to say that these things aren’t a collaboration, they always are, and credit is firmly planted where credit is due.  There’s no sense in mourning the loss of RFTC or Jehu, when you know that there’s still so much new music being cranked out by Swami.  Besides the actual demise of those bands is still in question, but we won’t get into that. Hot Snakes are back after their first promising record, bigger and better than ever before.  Former members of RFTC, Drive like Jehu and the Delta 72 set the precedent for the intense rock and roll that Hot Snakes is.  No one appears to be able to stick with any one given name, so I will spare you the confusing details on who’s who in the band.  Suffice to say that as always there is the incessant driving and pounding drumming that is the heavy-hitting backbone of the Hot Snakes.  Affiliations with the Delta 72 and who’s who in this band...Jason Kourkounis, jsinclair (?), never mind, it’s clear that this is a very talented drummer.  I think the most obvious difference between a Hot Snakes record and a Jehu or Sultans record is its vocal stylings.  With Reis taking a backseat to Rick Farr or Eric Froberg or Rick Froberg’s (argh....) voice giving it less of that loud growly garage-rock feel and more of an ndie-rock “singing” feel, however it sounds, it really works for the Hot Snakes, making them less of an extension of Jehu or RFTC and giving them more of their own unique voice. Whatever the case may be, it’s a full on assault from the moment that you drop the needle until the last chord of the last song, and there is humour to be found within that voice while it’s assaulting you musically...humour within the depth of that anguish.  This is aggressive pounding indie punk the way it’s meant to be played and listened to.

Track Listing:-

1 I Hate The Kids
2 Gar Forgets His Insulin
3 XOX
4 Who Died
5 Suicide Invoice
6 Paid In Cigarettes
7 Lax
8 Bye Nancy Boy
9 Papaerwork
10 Why Does It Hurt
11 Unlisted
12 Ben Gurion