Add Snowing to the list of hundreds of contemporary bands that directly and poorly emulate their sound from mid-90s Midwest emo bands. It is painstakingly obvious that the Pennsylvanian foursome listened to too much Cap’n Jazz in high school and decided to hop on the current emo revival bandwagon, minus the stereotypical notion that one has to be perpetually sad. Music style aside, Snowing’s first full-length album I Could Do Whatever I Wanted If I Wanted is a 29.1 minute long collection of poorly curated and constructed songs.
Released this past year as a follow-up to their widely circulated five-track demo/EP, Fuck Your Emotional Bullshit, this latest release has proved to be classic Snowing—boring and repetitive. Every single song sounds exactly the same with no particular unique parts that help listeners make distinctions between them other than a line or two of occasional vocal chants. It is impossible to tell whether or not a song has completely ended because the next track is its exact equivalent; this poor excuse for a band may as well have released an album with eleven duplicate tracks of one song. Because of this, the album lacks the feel of being a whole entity and lyrically ends up sounding like an assorted mix tape compilation consisting of someone crying about his most recent break-up, being caught up in an unfortunate situation and, strangely enough, decided that the act of reading House of Leaves was important enough to warrant its own song.
Besides lacking any emotional depth, Snowing is also musically forgettable. The vocalist’s jagged high-decibel wailing may be piercing and striking at first, but it gradually blends in with messy versions of the characteristic and overused mathy guitar work reminiscent of a string of 8-bit video game music (in the same key, nonetheless). Imagine hearing your fifteen-year-old son’s first ever punk band playing a show in your suburban garage—ten times faster while drunk—and you have the entirety of I Could Do Whatever I Wanted If I Wanted. By the end of each song, the constant whining becomes inaudible as the violent crash of so-calling “singing,” screaming, and instrumentation collide together like a predicted earthquake. It may sound the exact opposite of dull, but after hearing identical noises for precisely 29.1 minutes, it can get old.
Fans of Cap’n Jazz, Algernon Cadwallader, Grown Ups and the like should give this album a quick listen if only just to become familiar with this band who has made a small but well-known name for themselves in today’s emo scene. What they will discover is a group of guys whose only goal seems to be playing in a band “just because” and an eleven-song album dedicated entirely to unskilled guitar playing and complaining. Snowing plays songs for the sake of playing songs, and to them, there really is nothing more.
I really wanted to hear more specific critques about arrangement and specific lyrics.
ReplyDeleteI would have liked to have heard more about the individual songs. I think you did a good job of the overall album and the style, but it could go a little bit deeper.
ReplyDelete"Add Snowing to the list of hundreds of contemporary bands that directly and poorly emulate their sound from mid-90s Midwest emo bands." from the onset I was lost, this review drew a lot of comparisons to things that I had no knowledge of, i felt like I was missing something that was needed to fully understand the points you were making
ReplyDeleteNice, try using more descriptive words they fit into besides the "emo scene." Also, talk about what each song does or doesn't do right
ReplyDeletenot a bad review. a more in depth look into the structure of the songs would have been interesting.
ReplyDeleteI thought the explanation of the music itself was good, I especially liked the sentence...
ReplyDelete'Snowing is also musically forgettable. The vocalist’s jagged high-decibel wailing may be piercing and striking at first, but it gradually blends in with messy versions of the characteristic and overused mathy guitar work reminiscent of a string of 8-bit video game music (in the same key, nonetheless).'
"mid-90s Midwest emo bands" a little more description of what this sound is. "emo" seems to be a genre that is applied/misapplied so much that it ranges from Rites of Spring to Dashboard Confessional and those not from the Midwest might not get your reference.
ReplyDeleteI couldnt really get a clear idea of what it sounded like. I think as stated before me, that some kind of song breakdown would help alot. It was well put together though and clear to read.
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