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Avg: 4.5 (148 ratings)
- Date Released: August 22, 2006
- Genre: Alternative/Punk
- Style: Indie Rock
- Label: Jade Tree / Touch And Go
Post-post-post-punk for now people
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We Say...
To sing like Snowden frontman Jordan Jeffares, a transformation is required. First, jut out your lower jaw as if you're imitating Marlon Brando in The Godfather, your face contorted into an exhausted scowl. Second, let your tongue hang loose like a dislocated finger, its only movements involuntary. Now that your mouth is properly positioned, bellow at varying volumes, never pronouncing any words or syllables even, instead enunciating solely by emotion and decibel. Repeat.
The Jeffares Technique is not for everyone, but on Anti-Anti, the first full-length from Atlanta's Snowden, the approach lends the group's post-punky songs a stunning vigor — his unimpressed monotone details and deepens the group's sprightly arrangements. In the chorus to opener "Like Bullets," for example, Jeffares drones statically, elongating each word ("And we walk like bullets/ And talk like bullets") to illogical lengths, making the bass pulses quicken by contrast. And when the harmonies arrive in the second, third and fourth iterations of the chorus — just above and below his monotone — the song as a whole is absolutely mesmerizing.
There are at least six stone-cold fantastic songs on Anti-Anti, and "Like Bullets" is the best of the best. "Filler Is Wasted," another track with a hulking rhythm, heaving like an overloaded cart, is a close second — Jeffares' vocal line perversely runs straight into oncoming traffic; it is the exact wrong melody, his mocking chants of "perhaps that's why you owe me" ugly and yet so right. (Named, I assume, after the doomed Snowden character in Joseph Heller's Catch-22, the band does not shrink from risk or irony.)
The one other track that must be mentioned is "Victim Card." Built around a guitar line that would not sound out of place on PiL's Second Edition, "Victim Card" is earnest and meditative, Jeffares' voice heavily double-tracked and pleading. And for once, he is content to float along with the reverbed guitars and the gentle sway of the bass and tambourine. Supplicant and content, Jeffares beautifully dissolves into the haze. -
They Say...
Snowden has been compared to the Cure and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but the indie rock outfit carves out their own swarthy sound on their Jade Tree debut, Anti-Anti. Thankfully, the Atlanta-via-Athens quartet's thawing post-shoegazer/dream pop blend has absolutely nothing to do with Interpol and the like, thus the album title says it all. Singer/songwriter Jordan Jeffares' droning vocals and David Payne's reverb-driven guitars surround these 12 nervy melodies for a lush atmosphere of sonic hysteria. So what if it slightly echoes the classic sounds of '80s post-punk in the process? Producer/engineer Erik Wofford adds polish to Snowden's slippery moods so songs such as the moaning twitch of "Like Bullets" and the neurotic punctuality of "Counterfeit Rules" never lose their momentum. Slower cuts such as "My Murmuring Darling" and "Innocent Heathen" filter through a melancholic ebb and flow of Chandler Rentz's faint percussion and Corinne Lee's icy bass work. For those who enjoy the quieter moments of Joy Division and I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness' first album, Snowden's wavering gloom should be a nice fit for your collection.
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You Say...
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| 01. |  |
Like Bullets |
4:10 |  |
| 02. | |
Anti-Anti |
3:55 | |
| 03. | |
My Murmuring Darling |
3:45 | |
| 04. | |
Filler is Wasted |
4:57 | |
| 05. | |
Black Eyes |
3:58 | |
| 06. | |
Between the Rent and Me |
3:51 | |
| 07. | |
Counterfeit Rules |
3:14 | |
| 08. | |
Innocent Heathen |
4:26 | |
| 09. | |
Stop Your Bleeding |
4:09 | |
| 10. | |
Kill the Power |
2:53 | |
| 11. | |
Victim Card |
5:11 | |
| 12. | |
Sisters |
3:51 | |
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Credits
- Alan Douches - Mastering // Erik Wofford - Noise // Erik Wofford - Producer // Erik Wofford - Engineer // Erik Wofford - Mixing // David Payne - Guitar // David Payne - Group Member
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