The Snuts - W.L. - 6/10

 

It is becoming rarer and rarer for a new indie band to create ripples of excitement nowadays and so the expectation around the debut album from Scottish hopefuls the Snuts was high.

And in many ways their debut has all the promise of a good album. It comes loaded with passionate singalongs and catchy hooks but it just feels like something is missing.

That something is a sense of identity. The Snuts have all the ingredients a young band should need to create a hit. There’s urgent lyrics scatter gunned over fierce guitar licks and thudding drums aplenty, but it rarely feels entirely like the band are being themselves. It feels manufactured in the sense that if you asked a bunch of major record label executives to design a big hit indie record by committee, this is what you could imagine they would come up with.

The albums first big moments ‘Always’ and ‘Juan Belmonte’ are an example in point. The tracks rattle along at 100mph fuelled by fierce riffs and festival singalong choruses which, in principle, sounds great but in practice nothing about it feels new. It sounds no different to every mainstream indie band that emerged in the rush of the guitar band popularity contest of the mid noughties.

All great bands draw influence from what has been before of course but the problem here is that the Snuts are not reinventing old sounds into their own style but are just recycling what has been tried and tested. ‘All Your Friends’ sounds just like early Kasabian and ‘Don’t Forget it Punk’ is a picture perfect complete Raconteurs rip off (which to be fair is done brilliantly)!

The low point is reached with the summery schmaltz of ‘Somebody Loves You’. This poppy melody sounds like Bruno Mars at its best moments and like Nsync at its worst. It sits completely at odds with the rest of the album and feels like a desperate reach for radio airtime.

BUT it’s not all negative. The Snuts are clearly a talented band and sound their best when they sound just like.....well themselves.

‘Glasgow’ starts off threatening to be the type of feet dragging slow burn of a ballad that made the Script famous, but out of nowhere it kicks up a gear and breaks out of the traps. The end result is an enjoyable rock and roll rattle as the band break free of their shackles. ‘Maybe California’ is all good fun, sun kissed indie rock and roll, whilst ‘Coffee and Cigarettes’ draws its influence from Cage the Elephant but it’s tightly twisted descending melody manages to avoid pastiche.

The Snuts have all the promise of success and there’s no doubt that their radio friendly indie will draw big crowds and sell lots of records this year but they should aim for more. If they stopped worrying so much about what makes a hit record they might actually make one!