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Okay, I’ll admit it. I have no idea what is going on here, but I love it. I think. I was going to start by saying that if you are one of those people who likes comfort zones, neat boundaries and genres, and music that stays in its lane, then this is not for you. But, on reflection, that is precisely the sort of person who should hear this. It will do them a lot of good. With any luck, they will throw away their Oasis, Foo Fighters and Red Hot Chilli Peppers albums and similar lumpy music by all those bands that the musical sheep seem to love. And then their mind will be ready to take a journey into the…well, whatever this is.
Okay, I’m going in! Stress Sandwich sounds like the sort of album that System of A Down would have made had they not been a bunch of alt-metallers but rather an off-kilter, synth-punk duo. The music has the same sort of odd complexity and un-second-guess-able-ness, the same eclecticism, the same addiction to avant-gardening, and the same madness at its heart.
At this point in a review, I’d usually dissect a song or three to help give you some picture of what’s happening here. But I can’t see that it would help. No two songs are made the same way…perhaps speed rap and funky beats feature fairly often, hip-hop grooves maybe, but so do shards of rock guitar and thumping metal riffs, ambient electronica, and warped pop onslaughts. Sometimes all side by side in the same middle eight. See, that doesn’t help at all, does it?
No, I’m not going to try to explain things; no language yet created is adequate to do so. Snailmate and their music can only be an empirical process; it can only be understood by experiencing it…and even then, understanding is a bit of a big ask.
So buy it now, and play it, play it, play it. Either you will end up resonating with what they are all about, or you will go mad. Perhaps mad enough to form a band like Snailmate, open up for them on tour and help to usher in a whole new musical scene. See, either way, they win. Help, they’ve got us surrounded! Damn them, they’re clever.
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