Snooper: Worldwide
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Papier-mâché toting Nashville band Snooper have unleashed their second album upon the world via Third Man Records. Adam Brady reviews…
Traditionally, Nashville has been the site of all things Country even though that belies the nickname of “Music City”, given its long history of producing artists of many genres and styles. 2023 saw Snooper release their debut LP Super Snõõper, which was a collection of pre-existing material re-recorded following intensive road-testing and touring; the band, comprising founders Blair Trammel (vocals and electronics) and Connor Cummins (guitar) and their fellow members Connor Sullivan (guitar), Brad Barteau (drums), and Happy Haugen (bass) consider Worldwide to be their true debut – even with an unexpected cover thrown into the mix.
The moment you hit, press, or tap play you are taken on a wild ride of breathless DIY punk that just does not stop over the duration of the album, which is just over 28 minutes. The brevity is a feature, not a bug.
There are 11 original songs presented here, along with the aforementioned cover, so I’ll start with that. When John Lennon wrote Come Together, he could never have imagined that (quite possibly) his funkiest moment could be distilled and condensed into a one-minute 31 second egg-punk track that somehow manages to keep it recognisable, but twisted and contorted in such a way that it is almost a new song. To have the confidence to contemplate, let alone actually commit it to record shows how much Snooper have grown in confidence since their last album.
The ethos of Snooper is to waste no time and have a ton of fun doing it. Feeling the pressure of day jobs, touring, and needing to come up with new songs? Write about that having taken inspiration from social media’s ever-present hydraulic press videos, which is exactly what Trammel and Cummins did with the album’s title track. The drum machine, a recent acquisition, metronomically raises the tension, figuratively, and it never lets up.
Being totally honest, the whole album never lets up. Opening track Opt Out is a breakneck scene-setter; from its customer service “we’re sorry, all of our representatives are servicing other customers” sample to its lyrics referencing the 24/7 pressure of balancing life and work, to the banality of registration for absolutely anything and everything and we just accept it blindly. The call, nay shout, of STOP is very much a reminder to just take a moment and think about what we’re all doing each day with our time and information. On Line, the second song, follows on with a critique of how technology takes us away from our own lives and warps our thinking and perception of everyday life. It hits hard and fast.
The previously mentioned papier-mâché props began as a way of helping Trammel perform – before Snooper toured, she had never performed and suffered stage fright. Now, they are part of the self-proclaimed “Snooper-verse” along with puppets. All handmade, firmly an aspect of the identity of Snooper, and now an ever-present part of their live experience.
The album is wholly egg-punk, one could argue in the time of hyper-pop you could say that you could categorise Snooper as hyper-punk; but there is more to Snooper than just stuffing them into one or more (sub)genre of punk. As their confidence has grown, so has their wings. Hologram features sparse electronics, Star*69’s fuzzy bass nods towards the psychedelic, and Pom Pom (played on my 88th show) sees Trammel exploring more personal issues as opposed to the state of life and society.
The closing track Subdivision by dint of its length (it is the only song on the album that extends past the four-minute mark) solidifies Snooper as an exciting band not frightened to challenge themselves. The prior 11 songs could just have been all short, sharp stabs of punk, but each is different, showcasing diverse and diffuse techniques. They are a band full of imagination, they can raise you from the drudgery of life, and you can have enjoyment by the bucketload whilst you do it.
Worldwide is (obviously) punky. It’s spiky. It’s spunky, and I am all here for it.
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All words by Adam Brady, who hosts The Adam Brady Show on Louder Than War Radio. You can find his author’s archive here
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