STEEL WOOL AS EARPLUGS AND SAXOPHONE SURPRISES

With steel wool for earplugs I wandered into the world of Snail Gun.

I had this sense that I was the new, uneducated figure in the room. Sharply met with the abrasive noise of guitars within an inch of their life where a vibration of new sounds reverberated hard from the walls, no sound absorbed, only reflected. Layer upon layer of overdriven distortion beyond any comprehensible sense. Who’d have thought this would be so much fun.

The first track seemed as though it had observed the mess of a day I just fumbled through and the only way to ease my distress was by transforming that into sound. Hearing this for the first time couldn’t have been at a better moment. I needed the noise, I needed music to be that understanding moment that makes you feel like the afternoon drive home turns into therapy. So when Snail Gun unleash over the opener, I was getting a sense of it but just when you think you’ve found your footing they bring the vocals in. Then another element. Then another. It’s a snapshot and they are relentless. Just enough to stun you. Just enough to prepare you for what’s coming.

When I asked how they landed on this sound the answer was surprisingly simple. Adam told me “We just took elements from a lot of bands we collectively liked.” Those bands included the likes of Unwound, Shellac, The Jesus Lizard. Dan citing influences from teen influential years of music discovery with Black Flag, The Birthday Party & Girls Against Boys.

And what’s coming across Glass Walls is a lot to take in. The album unfolds piece by piece and it never really feels like the same thing twice. You start to pick up their sound, find the thread, and just when you think you have them figured out they shift again. Dan described it well, “We filter that through our own unique sound which makes the songs cohere even though they might be more revved up or laid back. It’s definitely not planned.”

Lyrics carrying a message, they seem to fight through the noise, as if every component is scrambling to get to the top of the pile, but when the noise breaks away and the vocals find the peak it’s almost this sigh of relief. That breath of air you take when you are standing compressed in a mosh pit and only the air above is clean and right for your lungs. Dan gave me a small window into how the lyrics come together too. “Sometimes I wake up and I’ll have a song in my head. The context is usually bizarre and dreamy, like you’re in your house but it’s NOT exactly your house.” That uncanny quality, you feel it in the music too.

Right in the middle of the album, and also my commute home, Midway I and Midway II start playing. A drop in tone, a shift in groove, and then a two part story both musically and in the later half, lyrically just plays out like some magic moment. Get the highlighter out, amongst other favourite tracks like Labyrinth and It’s Called Fear. This centrepiece jam session was addictive. Went back and played it twice through just to take it in. Turns out Snail Gun “originally wrote the second part, but came up with the first part as an instrumental opening.” Pretty stoked that happened.

If we talk about surprise additions, I firmly believe anyone that decides saxophone belongs in a song is worth paying attention to. I haven’t found a song yet where the sneaky addition didn’t improve on what was already written. The moment on Labyrinth where the sax comes in wasn’t planned either. Dan told me they were building a wall of sound at the end and thought sax could push it further. They met David Waldie from Gun Laws who came in and added an entirely new dimension to the track.

Hearing noise rock music for the first time is the equivalent of putting steel wool in your ears and filtering the world through it. Everything tangled and roped together, catching the light. But then something shifts. Track by track they start to unravel it. And you realise steel wool is actually kind of beautiful. Reflective. Shiny. You can get lost in something like that.

Snail Gun do that constantly. The anticipation never really leaves. Every moment seemed unpredictable in a sense but you felt like they knew their direction. Almost as if you were overseas and your tour guide didn’t speak English, they keep talking and you keep travelling, just knowing you’ll end up in the right place. There’s a level of trust, in holidays and in music. Strange analogy but somewhere in my swirl of thoughts it makes sense.

I figured I’d test my hand, always trying to bring acts in to Wollongong so our audience here can see some new faces, hear some new sounds. Adam let me know Wollongong is on the radar and name dropped Chimers as one of his favourites. We’ll be waiting.

Well, this album sounds like how I’ve felt. Bewildered. Noise and chaos and all too much. But there’s a beauty in it, the chaos and the calm. Mostly chaos but.

If I can speak a truth here. There are whole other musical genres to explore outside of what the radio, the algorithms, the labels, the playlists, the whole commercialised machine sells to you. If you venture off, get lost, transcend upon local scenes and music, there is one wild side they don’t show you.

Hopefully this glimpse is just the start for you.