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Friday Full-Length: Snail, Terminus

Posted in Bootleg Theater on January 6th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

It seems strange to feel nostalgic about this, but then you remember that 2012 was now more than a decade ago and that strangeness goes away some. Snail released what was their second post-reunion album and third overall full-length, Terminus (review here), in May of that year, and while they’ve done two more albums since, it’s important to note that at the time, it wasn’t a sure thing they’d do another one at all. After an initial run amid the earlier after-grunge blowouts that became stoner metal that led them to their 1993 debut, Snail (review here), and the next year’s All Channels Are Open EP (discussed here), it would be 15 years before they returned with 2009’s Meteorcity-issued Blood (review here, discussed here), which was mostly based on demos from their original era.

That detail is crucial, especially since it meant that Terminus would be the first batch of newer material they’d worked on since the early 1990s. I remember being surprised at how metal some of the riffing was across the 10 tracks/46 minutes of the release, and in the guitar squealies in the verse of hooky opener “Recursion,” that impression remains all this time later, the inhale/exhale of their verses and choruses flowing as they build and let go of tension. The work of then-lead guitarist Eric Clausen should also be noted here. His slow-Slayer creeper solo in “Recursion,” a bit of ZZ Top swagger in the subsequent “Galaxies’ Lament” and the bluesier take alongside the piano transitions in “Matchbook” set a varied approach that continues to expand in the wah of “Burn the Flesh,” the classic-heavy style of “Terminus,” etc., as his play and that of guitarist/vocalist Mark Johnson coalesce and bring arrangement nuance to set alongside Johnson‘s sneakily intricate vocals — listen to the layering in “Matchbook” or how the watery effect in “Circles” adds to that song’s ’60s-psych atmosphere, which is not to mention the Alice in Chains-style self-harmonies of “Ritual” or the subtle Queens of the Stone Age-ism of the verses in the closing title-track, complete with whispers and all — and give the original trio of Johnson, bassist/backing vocalist/producer Matt Lynch and drummer Marty Dodson a way to expressively jam and grow the context of their songs on the whole. This would be Clausen‘s last record with Snail, as he left in 2013 and started a new band called Division Process, but his contributions here aren’t to be discounted just because he may have been on his way out at the time.

And it should be noted that the ‘metal’ vibe that comes through in some of the songs — certainly in the aggro surge of “Hippy Crack,” which moves from its Tool-ish buildup into a speedier sorta-noise rocker that feels like it was of a kin with their ’90s work, barks and growls and all — is filtered through Snail‘s own signature rolling groove. Listening through “Circles,” the willfully grandiose crashes of “Love Theme” or the definitive march in “Ritual,” the argument for Dodson (and the band as a whole) as underrated makes itself, and for much more than just the cowbell coinciding with the Sabbathian turn late in “Burn the Flesh.” His play universally enhances the material — that is, there is no song underserved by what he brings to it — even in absent stretches like the verses of “Try to Make It” that make the chorus land that much heavier, and in company Lynch‘s warm, weighted bass tone, the rhythm section captures a largesse in a cutSnail Terminus like “Burn the Flesh” that not only gives Clausen room to rip out lead lines even as the march is barely underway, but sounds big enough to warrant the Pink Floyd lyrical references and the meditative-realization narrative of the chorus, slow but not staid, deeply arranged in the vocals, gorgeous in its consuming totality.

“Love Theme” seems to reference the title-track of Blood if only for its single-word repetition of “love” before “peace and happiness” fill out its only lyrics — what more do you really need? — and its setting up the more actively-psych second half of the record is essential coming out of “Burn the Flesh” and “Hippy Crack” before it and leading into the druggy “Ritual” — its second/third chug-marching verse starting with the line “Pills untils we are fills” — after, the progression there allowing Johnson a moment in a standalone layer that prefaces the vocals-only ending on the line “So gone away” ahead of the drifting start of “Circles.” That song taps a spirit like Monster Magnet at their psychedelic best, and is all the more flowing with keys playing more of a role as the organ in “Try to Make It” seems to push deeper into the direction laid out by the vague Easternism in the winding lead guitar lines prior, but the play with silence and the languid, jammier finish of “Circles” — all sustained by Lynch‘s steady bassline — is a highlight nonetheless as the band carries the listener forward toward the sun, maybe realizing a bit of what “Burn the Flesh” was talking about lyrically in its willingness to feel like it’s losing cohesion without actually doing so (again, it’s that bass holding it together).

Terminus makes both its variety and its core heavy modus apparent early, as “Galaxies’ Lament” picks up with a more melodic verse than “Recursion,” before shifting into its own more energetic chorus, but Snail never seem to give it all away at once in terms of songwriting, and each of the 10 tracks throughout offers something of its own that adds to the impression of the whole. The metal-shred in “Try to Make It” — the lyrics of which open themselves to multiple interpretations, some of which seem like a direct contrast to the open groove of the verses and maybe that’s the point as the chorus explodes to enter — is perhaps prefaced in “Galaxies’ Lament,” but in the later piece, it adds purpose to the chaos as a swell of feedback rises to consume the song by its finish, which thuds out and leaves residual echo as a transition to “Terminus,” which it should be said, starts as though nothing just happened and Snail didn’t just pull apart a solar system.

The line “She fears change” in “Terminus” marks the ascent to louder volume, hard-hitting, bell-tolling chugging riffery, lyrics reaffirming the mortality of all things, and that indeed is where Snail bring Terminus to its end, by riding out that part on a well-earned slow fade. Whispers come and go, voices in and out, and the last vocal line is a child’s voice saying, “Okay it’s time to wake up now,” before the album gives way to silence. Fair enough.

I will not discount the work Snail did either on 2015’s Feral (review here) or 2021’s Fractal Altar (review here) as they returned to their original trio lineup and continued to expand their sound, but Terminus set in motion a lot of what they’d become on those two records while having a personality of its own that stands out from the rest of their discography. As their third long-player (and one that would seem to be desperate for a reissue, perhaps on vinyl), its manifestation of who Snail was as a band at the time felt duly landmark, triumphant, and while I dug Blood a lot — and I mean a lot —  this was the record that cemented me as a fan of the band, and I’m glad to say I’ve remained one ever since.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thank you for reading.

I had kind of a beautiful time yesterday listening to that record. I’d gone swimming in the morning at the gym — me and the other old men doing laps for the early AM — for the first time since just after I hurt my knee in October and was pleased to find my leg didn’t fall off, and I sat on the couch in my usual spot, lightly stoned while The Pecan was at school, and just listened and took some notes and enjoyed it. After doing the Quarterly Review all week — not painful, but hardly relaxing in terms of how one experiences a release — it was refreshing. I’d finished the QR post that went up today, set up the back end for stuff on Monday, and could actually relax for a few minutes. I needed that.

It had been a week. Wednesday was my mother’s birthday and my family came over for dinner. The weather has been unseasonably warm, which is both pleasant and apocalyptic, so we managed to get out at least for a few short walks — went to the Turtle Back Zoo on Monday — and The Pecan went back to school on Tuesday, which I think all three of us were ready for. That, however, caused him to feel emotions, which he generally expresses by wrecking shit. See also when he’s excited about a thing, tired, arguing about food, etc. It’s pretty much been one thing into the next all week and I don’t mind telling you that’s fucking exhausting. No, kid, I can’t play Bluey games with you for seven hours. Believe me when I say I’m sorry. Maybe if I was 31 instead of 41 and we’d been able to make a baby happen when we first explored the idea, I’d be as much fun as Bandit. I suspect not.

But we’ll never know. I’m trying to remember to enjoy this time while I have it, to be grateful for what I have. I do not always succeed at this. Looking back at that writeup for All Channels Are Open 10 years ago, linked above, was a trip. I was losing jobs all over the place. I am fortunate now to not be in the labor market, or surely I’d be back in retail by now, being treated like subhuman garbage and taking way too seriously shit that matters not in the slightest. Work like that gets in your head; it’s hard to step out of it mentally, to keep your perspective. I have a hard time doing this generally, and in parenting, at which I more often than not feel like an utter failure. Every day, for example.

Next week, five more days of Quarterly Review. Today at 5PM Eastern, new Gimme show: http://gimmemetal.com

Thanks if you listen and thanks for reading.

I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Have fun, hydrate, watch your head, all that stuff. It’s a new year, so… I don’t know. Just keep going. You can do that.

FRM.

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Snail Post Official Video for “Ritual”

Posted in Bootleg Theater on January 9th, 2013 by JJ Koczan

If you’re like me, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “But wait a second… Didn’t Snail already make a video for the song ‘Ritual’ from their most excellent 2012 album, Terminus, and didn’t The Obelisk premiere it?” Well, okay, maybe you weren’t thinking in those exact terms, or thinking that at all, but either way the answer is the same: Kinda.

Back before Terminus was released, I put up an interview with guitarist/vocalist Mark Johnson and bassist Matt Lynch about the making of the album, and indeed, there was a video premiere along with that Q&A, and indeed, that video was for the song “Ritual.” The difference is that this new clip wasn’t made by the band and it’s an original project by an outsider rather than compiled with found footage by the band themselves. I liked the other video, but you know, I like this one too, and they’re both (mostly) black and white, so there’s even a bit of continuity between them.

Actually, to be perfectly honest, my first thought when I was watching the “Ritual” clip below directed by Maxime Weber was  to wonder if the office park that appears at around the two-minute mark and again later in some of the color section wasn’t the same one that was used for filming Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, but no, it turns out it was all filmed in Luxembourg, and I’m a jerk. Glad I got that one settled.

Enjoy “Ritual,” and if you’ve enjoyed it before, take it as a cue to break out Terminus for another listen. I did:

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