Snowblood – S/T (SuperFi Records)
By Jay Snyder
January 12, 2010

Man, Glasgow, Scotland’s genre defying quartet Snowblood are one hell of an uncompromising entity, but I have to say I’ve done a poor job of keeping in the thick of their progressive, challenging take on doom n’ gloom. I got into the band when their debut LP, The Human Tragedy came out in 2004, although I didn’t buy the damn thing until 2009! There are entire songs on that disc (“Cape Wrath” in particular) that I can only describe as phenomenal, and any extreme doom fans who give the songs a chance to unfold will find something truly worthwhile.

To make this reviewer’s matters even worse, the lazy son of a gun didn’t even bother to check out the band’s second disc Being and Becoming, which garnered acclaim and praise from just about everyone who heard it and wrote about it. While it’s possible to coin certain parts of their tunes with the much loathed “post” way of thinking, anyone who takes the time to sit down with the band will find that their post influences are far jazzier, and more progressive than those just going through the motions not to mention they are a small part of a full realized whole.

Additionally within the band’s vast corridors of sound, you’ll find the crushing, mesmerizing repetitions of Selfless era Godflesh, the feral bass laden thunder of prime Electric Wizard, topped off with the murderous venom of Goatsblood and UK scum doom and maybe even a little bit of Willpower era Today is the Day thrown in for the way the band will say “fuck it” and explode into high-frequency noise curmudgeon when the occasion calls for it. To add to the sadness of this story (mainly the sadness of how the reviewer failed to follow a truly exciting band, properly) this S/T affair is to be the band’s final recorded output before calling it a day. It looks I was destined for misfortune in my fandom of the band, so the least I can do is assemble a review for these well deserving lads, since their day in the sun will come to a close due to the distant living situations of those in the inner circle of the Snowblood ranks.

Opening with an untitled, 15+ minute cut (each of the four tunes is untitled, lending a cryptic finality to the band’s work here), the band illuminates all areas of their sound right off the bat. Clean chords mingle with buzzing low-end distortion, creating an uneasy mood of progressive, post dementia that’s forged into something otherworldly with vocalist Luke’s plaintive ethereal singing that’s full of vivid character. Jazzy drumming leans heavy on the complexity and showcases Ewan’s attentive detail to lucid fills and nuanced cymbal crashes. Tobin keeps building on the progressive melodies introduced earlier by his guitar, and as the volume increases so does the nasty buzz of Youngy’s low-end. It’s an Isis type build, but something is different, far more threatening and just all around better. Intensity rises with each movement, with the song seeing a run of broken neck, noise-rock chords and dual vocals that retain the melody in a backing line, with a sickening, drugged out screech providing the gusto in the foreground. The song whips into a religiously, psychotic fervor near the 6 minute mark with an acerbic ascension of noise that packs the same moody, rabid animal wallop of TITD classics such as “6 Dementia Satyr” or “Sidewinder”; layers upon layers of noise, boiling with anger and the kind of ear damaged chords that makes your skin feel as if its peeling off the bone as you listen to this record. Continuing to dazzle, while throwing the rulebook clean out the window, the band plows headlong into a murky, repetitive DOOM riff that’s about as viciously heavy and against the grain they come; trudging forward with a deliberate, bad intent that’s fully realized whenever the sound itself dissipates into an explosive wall of noise where Ewan bashes his kit into a million pieces and all stringed instruments converge into a caterwaul of scraping pain that most bands would use as a means to an end for a song. Not fucking Snowblood! Instead of sealing the deal on this note, they vanish back into a soul sucking void of dopesick screams and God fearing, Goatsblood flavored hate crawl.

The ability of this band to so deftly mix beautiful contemplation with ugly, UK filth doom is second to none, and quite beyond my sense of comprehension. They pull no punches, and never for a second does the band sound as if their trying to capitalize on any sort of trend. Instead this band lurks in a world of flies, disease and famine that is all of their own creation. Even with the aforementioned influences, I can’t say Snowblood sounds anything like their peers, except for in certain isolated instances.

If you’re reeling from the opener, I can’t promise that the second untitled track is going to give you an easy time of things. Clocking in a minute or two longer than its preceding brethren, this one is a spacey, expanded affair with layers upon layers of nuance and subtleties. This is an exercise in taking a singular theme and slowly adding something to each moment, while getting louder and louder in the process. Calmly spoken vocals float free form over light, rising tides of guitar strum, rich low-end and the hum of keyboards. Luke’s vocals bear some semblance to Scott Kelly’s work in his solo project or Blood and Time, creating a timeless horror movie aura that will have you glancing about your area to catch a glimpse of what unseen force lurks just outside of the eye in the room or car that you are listening to this album in. Plenty of echo and delay effects are applied to the guitar, once it assembles into audible distortion during the midsection, continuing the bands lofty climb in mood and atmospherics. Whenever you least it expect, the payoff comes ripping, and what a payoff it is; imagine Godflesh at their most uplifting and enlightening, played with twice the volume, doomed up for the sake of sheer brutality and vicious, vocal rapture tearing your soul apart. It’s a literal sonic whirlwind that’s about as gripping of a climax that you could hope for in the context of such an extended build-up, and the song ends up coming off as the sequel to the dark horse genius that was “Cape Wrath” on The Human Tragedy LP! The way the band exorcises their demons at the end of this one, makes it perfectly appropriate for the haunting keys, echoing guitar strum and tabla percussion to officially close the show.

Following suite, the third track is the serene world of nature you’d see on the Discovery Channel brought to life with sound. Teeming with natural evolutions of bustling, indie blasted guitar work, a kaleidoscope of grooving bass lines, piano and cello…the band again tenses things up for the finale, with another push of deafeningly beautiful guitar melodies, soaring vocals which transform to a white hot scream at the drop of a hat, and “blink n’ you’ll miss it” drum flash. It’s the shortest track on the disc, giving way to the album’s final track. The fourth tune is also the longest (over 17 minutes!), leaving the band enough time to work all sorts of magic. The soothing builds in this tune shimmer with clean vocals and the eerie beauty of later Neurosis, but there’s rougher, turbulent waters ahead with descents into unclean, EW meets Goatsblood sludge pummel, twitchy Am-Rep noise rock peaking and ending with a gothic drone of the highest caliber.

What a shame that this is the last we’ll hear of Snowblood till further notice. They were a one of a kind entity, who combined styles that are vastly disparate, but converge into a unique whole in this band’s ever so able hands. I’m bad at picking favorites, or figuring things out in my overactive mind sometimes, but I think this is the best band to play anything even remotely “post” in the current age. As progressive and melancholic as their sound is, there’s a downtrodden aggressive element here that’s as heavy as the heaviest of doom. There’s also a will to experiment on hand, that’s not like anything out there that’s a direct descendent of Isis. No sir, Snowblood deal in ambiguous manipulation of both pretty constructs and ones that are truly, heaving and brutal.

This is sludge like you’ve never heard, and anyone into the genius that billows from the smokestacks of the UK’s sludge n’ doom corporations, needs to hear every piece of work molded by these fine fellows. Now, it’s time for me to stop being a deadhead and check out the middle child of this trilogy. Farewell Snowblood, and thanks for writing some killer, killer shit! As for you the fan who has fallen out of touch, or for you others who have never heard the band, this S/T masterpiece marks a great time to get yourself acquainted with an overlooked, and underrated band. RIP.



Visit the SuperFi Records website at www.superfirerecords.co.uk