Band : Blues And Snake

Album title : Blues And Snake

Label : Lockjaw

Distributor : Progressive Publicity

Release date : 12/05/2008

Release : CD

The four members of Blues And Snake (lead singer and harmonica player Ash Hunter , guitarist/ backing singer Paul Vickers , bassist Jamie Gardinor , and drummer Euan Hendry ) have known each other from their boyhood years in the city of Knutsford in the North-West of England (some 27 kms S-SW from Manchester), and started up their first band The Evil Babies while still in secondary school and only 12.

That being some 10 years ago, the music they played then sounded quite different, the main influences then being Deftones and Korn ...but a freaky tendency towards the darker side of life was definitely already present! Although most of the guys' school friends have moved away from their native city, these four have stuck together, doin' many dead-end jobs along the road, and continuing to work on the details of their band. Over the years, the quartet occasionally recorded some demos, and it's at one of such sessons (in late 2006 or early 2007...I'm not sure) that the musical idea for Blues And Snake was born!

Citing acts such as Bad Brains , White Zombie , Hank Williams , and The Beastie Boys as listening preferences (therefore not at all limiting themselves to just those), and animation series South Park as humoristic inspiration source, the music which evolved was an overall angry and aggressively whirling blend of Delta Blues (that mouth harmonica, you know) with a modern Rock twist in a combination never heard before! The boys immediately took their tunes to the live circuit, meeting with initially incredulous people upon seeing such young people (they're only 22 now) play in a band which has the word "Blues" in it. But it usually only takes the first couple of songs for those same unbelievers to get what the boys are doing! Currently based in Manchester, where the band operates from either the garage or bedroom of frontman Ash , the band returned to a studio situated at a greyhound breeding farm in Wigan (some 40 kms from Manchester in Western direction – towards the sea) with John Kettle (formerly guitarist and principal songwriter of Wigan-based '90s band The Tansads which mixed Punk, Folk and Indie and left us a total of 5 albums but failed to make commercial success) to complete the recordings for their debut album.

The 12 resulting short tracks (only the album opening "You've Struck Gold" and the album closing "Born To Snake" cross the 3-minute line, the shortest track being the 75-second instrumental "Safe As Fuck" with its weird Hip Hop effect) are a true joy for music lovers to uncover, and creep into one's soul little by little with each listening session. The lyrics are somewhat tongue-in-cheek, and do not necessarily represent events in the youngsters' own life! About half of the tracks contain sound samples, which is but yet another inventive find. Vocally, the singer most usually goes for a snarl, but there's occasional moments when the overall mood of the song demands a calmer vocal approach as well (the banjo-infused "My Grass" , the acoustic opening of "Fishermans Boat" , the overall calmer "Bag Of Drum" ). Surf to myspace.com/bluesandsnakeband for your acqaintance with this somewhat awkward Blues Rock band. Enjoy the more aggressive side of the band with "Sailing For The Moon" , give testimony of the band's inventive use of movie sound samples, witness their capricious mood swings in "Fishing For Green" , and chill out to "My Grass" . Then try to come and tell me these guys would not deserve a perfect rating...and I won't talk to you anymore!!! Hahah, just joking: everyone's entitled to his or her own opinion, aren't we? But personally...I'm sold! If you feel the same, there's a video for the 2-minute "Dirty Women" , recorded in Ash 's bedroom. Definitely low-budget, but it's well-recorded and shows just how young the guys are!

98/100

Tony.