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On the Radar: Snailking

Posted in On the Radar on July 26th, 2012 by JJ Koczan

If there’s one thing I like, it’s a band recommendation. Last week, I got put onto Black Black Black from Brooklyn, and this week it’s Snailking, from Sweden. The newly-formed trio (on Thee Facebooks here), who take their name from an Ufomammut record, are geared sonically in that direction as well. Their debut demo, Samsara, was self-released digitally at the end of June, but has already been picked up for a physical CD release on Consouling Sounds. One listen to the stream and it’s pretty easy to hear why.

Snailking make little bones about their YOB influence across these three tracks. In general, the riffing style of guitarist Pontus Ottosson reminds in some of its turns of early to mid-period YOB — whether it’s the opening of “Shelter” nodding at “Catharsis” or the closing of “Samsara” nodding at “The Mental Tyrant” — but invariably the dynamics are going to be somewhat different, and with bassist Frans Levin and drummer Karl Jonas WijkSnailking are just beginning to carve an identity within what will no doubt become a much more prevalent point of inspiration over the next several years. As far as that kind of thing goes, they’re still relatively early in arriving.

The three extended tracks on Samsara are more distinguished by Ottosson‘s vocals than the riffs, however. While the guitar keeps its Atma-styled jangle — albeit smoothly produced — through the majority of the demo’s 40 minutes, Neurosis-style shouting meets with a more melodic culmination on centerpiece “The Wake” — which, wow, sounds like YOB when those guitars kick in — and one can just quite get the sense that there could be more to Snailking than the derivations thus far presented. See if you can hear it on the player below, hoisted from their Bandcamp page. Either way, it’s thick space  doom and a Swedish sample in there, so it’s not like you’ve got anything to lose:

Special thanks to Lisa Hass for the recommendation.

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