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Always
been a big fan of these post-whatevers. Their last three
albums have honed in a forward thinking sound that has
never foregone any of their early days qualities.
Tail Swallower and Dove is still aggressive and at
parts even downright heavy. True, some of their early
post hardcore traits have dissipated and have mostly
been replaced by some titillating and flawlessly
incorporated electronic work, but from that subgenre
These Arms Are Snakes have kept on the jagged angularity
close to their core and their adventurous will to craft
moody aural expansions. So experimentalists they are,
but their formula is down and aside from their blunt
influences this is a band betting for their own sound.
These Arms Are
Snakes make fragile music. It is heavy music driven by anything
but guitars. There is no punchline to their songs. No easy
hooks, nor grand choruses. No grandiloquence and perhaps no
humor either. There is nothing to scream about, no need to pull
your hair or be a groupie. Like those that charged their two
excellent previous records, these songs are about build ups and
crescendos. These are movements driven more than by music by the
non stop, at times deadpan, theatrics of the great Steve Snere.
His vocals are nothing short of outstanding. He stopped
screaming a long time ago and started talking to a microphone,
speaking in a loud voice, almost in an eternal monologue. Snere
transmits as much feel as the partial instrumentality that
carries this gorgeous album.
The music is
another matter. Constructed around a reflective and continuous
mid tempo, these songs sound like they have passed through
several phases of quality control. I am not only talking about
songwriting, the clean production by Chris Common saves itself
from being sterile by emphasizing certain big sounds. This is
obviously careful work that as a result puts the emphasis back
to the music and the flawless musicality of it all. The songs
themselves are controlled, “Red Line Season” has two cores, one
organic and one electronic, repetition is the plate and the
topping a dynamic guitar riff. “Ethric Double” is almost absent,
a song of faint notes and humble volume, it’s only up to Snere
to carry his band’s faint structures. Gorgeous work.
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