The Nashville, Tennessee-based art/punk outfit Snõõper shout out lo-fi blasts of directness via short snippets of fuzzed-up punk throughout their full-length debut Super Snõõper.
The group started as an oddball pairing of Connor Cummins (guitar) and Blair Tramel (vocals) that mixed in various artistic flair during their live shows, before bringing in Cam Sarrett (drums), Happy Haugen (bass), and Ian Teeple (guitar) to plump up the sound.
Rarely running past one minute and thirty seconds (and many times much shorter than that) the band’s songs are distorted sonic waves of fury mixed sing-songy vocals, combining, then dissolving before they overstay their welcome. Two songs that touch the two-minute mark each have elongated samples to close, “Fitness” uses a spoken word meditation on southern bodybuilding while “Microbe” gets educational in front of a bumping disco beat. Both songs also happen to be great as “Fitness” is one of the speediest efforts with breaks and whistle blows while “Microbe” undulates between poppy/raw in a shifting style that is intoxicating.
Each track is engaging using the band’s no-frills, brief, mannerisms. The crashing pop-punk of the uber-quick “Bed Bugs” shows the way after an odd and unnecessary intro. “Pod” keeps the power pumping, “Powerball” has a great bassline to match screeching guitars and lyrics about the fallacy of lotto while “Xerox” has the snottiest vocal style from Tramel and the most killer guitar solo from Cummins on the album.
Haugen’s bass and laser-like effects color “Fruit Fly” which uses tempo shifts expertly before “Defect” sounds like a funky modem getting disconnected and blasting in your ear. The stuttering “Town Topic” jumps forward and back, “Unable” uses a bang/slash/burn approach while “Music for Spies” is an album highlight with rumbling effectiveness.
The truth is if you like one Snõõper song you are going to dig them all as the band finds their niche and blasts forward in it. The one exception is the closing “Running”, which at five minutes feels like a mini rock opera for the band. The track wisely ends things as it shifts the focus to a dance-ready post-punk formula that Snõõper also excels at.
“Running” may point to the upcoming evolution of this band, or may just be an outlier, but however it shakes out in the future, the ultra-speedy Snõõper have scorched the Nashville streets and beyond with Super Snõõper.
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Both songs also happen to be great!