I can only speak honestly about this band called SNAFU. Their album, “Present Day Plague” is set to be released August 8th. When listening to it I felt an enormous angst and uproar, an unsettled misery. There was something commiserate about it as well. You can hear the turmoil and frustration infused into their loud sound and screaming roars. Snafu is a fitting band name. The definition is, “a confused or chaotic state; a mess”. And their album is nothing short of this.
I watched their video “Death March Rat Race” and found it terrifying. A security guard forces roughly five men into a room. The hostage’s hands are bound together with tape as a gun is pointed at them. Their faces are covered by bags. They are forced down on the ground to their knees. A logo is shown amidst tv static and fuzz. The band begins “serenading” their prisoners. The head masks the prisoners wear are also disturbing. They bare some sort of X mark that more than a little resembles the Ku klux klan X. Though I can’t be totally sure, I heard the lyrics “there’s not much more in this world to save, we’re all gonna rot in a fucking grave”, screamed by the lead singer. By the end of the song, which thankfully is only a minute and thirty four seconds, they shoot the prisoners.
The first song on the album, “Subhuman Scum” is a great foreshadower to the eighteen other songs which follow. All songs are thrown at you like a hot potato you just want to get out of your hands fast. Phrases like “consumerism”, “worst than animals”, and “subhuman scum”, are repeatedly said. It had me wondering, who is the sub-human scum they are referring to?
Most songs are thankfully less than three minutes. The only song over five minutes is “One from None”. This is smart considering how intense each song is – you need a reprieve after every single one. What I don’t understand is this lack of dynamics. Just because it’s hardcore doesn’t mean it can’t develop and go somewhere within the song. It’s mostly just loud noise with lyrics yelled at you, many of which I can’t make out.
The album cover for “Present Day Plague” shows what looks like robot-esque military people shooting directly at zombie-esque looking people. At the forefront of the image is a person who’s just been shot in the head with blood spurting out of the front of his right eye. Is this the music of the apocalypse? Thats really what it felt like to me. Just like what I envision hell to be like, if there is a hell.
The Detroit band consists of Scott and Rian both on guitar and vocals along with Mickey on bass and vocals, and Ryan on drums. Chris Trestain mixed and mastered the twenty song album. You can listen to Snafu here. Watch videos on their Youtube page and stay up to date on there Facebook page. Their single “Unchained” can be listened to on Soundcloud.
