Some bands just grab you, you know. You might listen to Glasgow’s The Amazing Snakeheads’ recently released debut album Amphetamine Ballads and enjoy it but not be totally sure why.
That they are playing 2000 Trees this summer is both a testament to the ear for quality the organisers have as well as a sign of the sway they hold on huge upcoming acts.
If you asked people who were listening to Wu Lyf a year or two ago and asked why they liked their music they’d have been hard pushed to give an answer that weren’t just vague references to the personae that NME had created around them. Due credit though, they had a certain passion which brings me onto a certain Dale Barclay…
Passion is what frontman Barclay has in truckloads, the kind you can’t fake or put on for the cameras. He’s sure as hell riled up about something. Their live shows have become amazingly intense adrenaline fueled pageants that are so close to boiling over your brain is telling you you’re not safe there, but how the hell are you supposed to turn away from this spectacle?
Indeed he is the only remaining member of the original line up and if the human race comes down to a bar fight for survival he’ll be sticking around a long time after the rest of us are left with wine bottles lodged in our throats.
There’s elements of hardcore (the raw instrumentation punctuated by repeated snarled lines) but Snakeheads see themselves as Rock & Roll, the purest kind- the kind you take intravenously. The brass is a surprise inclusion but just as menacing as the guitars, vocals and lyrics and adds another element to proceedings.
When the bass is bedding sparse drumming, the guitars are squirming and the brass haunting your soul you wouldn’t be far off comparing such aspects of their debut to some of Nick Cave’s more menacing moments.
These guys could have been around in the 80s and be seen as an underground punk band in a time where they were ten a penny and besides, you already had the best in the game back then. These days, we need people like Dale Barclay to inject some passion into us, to awaken our fury, to check if we still bleed.
Here It Comes Again
