Review Summary: Unsung knights of suave punk on their mission to decimate earbuds.
R.I.P. Rick Froberg
Among the bizarro movements of the alternative rock’s rise, many a hopeful musical contortionist tried their hands at bending styles and shifting gears mid-career with several projects. All the more experimentation and ship-jumping took place in the inexplicable boom of rock and punk rebellion of the Southern California in the 80s and 90s (and to an extent later too). Labels like Ebullition Records pioneered emo and skramz, while Alternative Tentacles essentially popularised hardcore, performative punk, and a variety of oddball off-shots all throughout the American east coast. This swift rise in stylistic expression of rowdiest, nastiest nature paved way for gruesome depraved punk rogues the world over. And within this cesspool of filth, countercultural rebellion, and provocation emerged a dynamic duo: Rick Froberg and John Reis, a yin and yang of few-tonnes-heavy guitar explosion with lyrics about as nonchalantly cryptic and deliberately confusing as an Ogham haiku.
These two also played a few punk bands at school, no doubt participating and disgusting their school talent shows, until finally definitively forming a seminal short-lived underground powerhouse that was Pitchfork. Still somewhat unsure of their style, the band somewhat emulated everything in use at that time but managed to coalesce all these influences into a cacophonous and ugly, ugly, ugly EP and an album (both released through Nemesis Records, another staple of ***-all-of-you kind of punk at the time). The accidentally unseemly mess was borne of little means, on small budget and schedules, with nothing but their own energy to carry the performance but managed to end up sounding more ferocious than many of their much larger contemporaries. The effortless cool they brought to the table was certainly a great change of pace from the sappy self-deprecating trends taking hold in the broader circles of punk and hardcore. But it wouldn’t be until their next outing that the duo truly came to their own and became the trend-setters, instead of style-relishers.
Drive Like Jehu is still today a band that is remembered as the starters of noise-cum-fun revolution that would later spark Fugazi, Shellac, At the Drive-In, and many more. Their combination of the previously mastered effortless cool, while maintaining some of the most excruciating scuzzy riffs this side of electric shock therapy, is a signature move unmatched by almost any band then or now. Their sporadic fidelity jumps in sound is the kind of accidental genius one can only aspire to. Their live performances, as authentic as a DIY anarchopunk festival, yet as grandiose as a skyscraper demolition, are the stuff of legends. They were the ultimate juggernaut, providing the blueprint for drastic change in noise music for generations to come. And they were also the milestone necessary for the foundation of Reis and Froberg’s next effort beginning in the very early 00s.
Aptly true to the nature of band-jumping, pushing the sound and one’s boundaries further and further, yet maintaining one’s own most genuine self, the scuzz-duo became now Hot Snakes: a tongue-in-cheek continuation of an already tongue-in-cheek existence. Their self-aware brand of rambunctious punk has now evolved to its most melodic and lyrically sporadic implementation. In no way a pretence at being some new chapter for their chosen styles, Hot Snakes came rather as an exercise in comfort and mastering of all the influences the duo accrued and also became themselves over the years. Hot Snakes, is in its purest form an amalgam of all that the Reis-Froberg bullet train has spearheaded, primary and solo projects alike. It is by design their most carefree, fun-loving, unconventional display of sheer power. After two stellarly received albums, both listening essentials for any fan of the nastier side of punk, the band has decided to call it quits once again, as their inspiration has started to run thin and their side-projects became too much of a burden on time. But the end would not happen without one last gratifying gift to the world.
This is where
Audit in Progress comes in, Hot Snakes’ most commercially successful album. Very little has changed from their usual output, but the crisper production. From the first minutes and the beatdown style guitar riff on “Braintrust” and staccato catharsis of “Hi-Lites”, it is evident that the band gives not two ***s about evolving, but cares deeply about the sound they have perfected over their career and the two previous albums. Pay attention or do not to the lyrics, that is you prerogative. They have always played a role of utility mainly, so that Rick Froberg had an excuse to shout over the pulsating music, giving his animated artwork, which has always been an integral part of his music, a form of vocal representation. His voice is shattering yet seems to have the time of his life at every word he exudes. The guitars are like frolicking flames that can spread like wildfire into some unexpectedly dramatic territories. One such example is the third track “Retrofit”, where the entire instrumental set-up at first comes off as a collage of punk indifference, until the final minute hits and the guitars swell like a metastasising tumour, reddened and dangerous. The following track “Kreative Kontrol” works on a similar structure, but there the dramatic music kicks the track off only to be swiftly swayed into the straightforward punk flatline, gradually turning back into drama towards the end.
Such is the pattern with many tracks on the album. They slither and shift from planar to histrionic quite seamlessly. The guitar riffs can be simplistic, nay that is their express purpose. The band is, in a very far-far-far-fetched way, a continuation of some of the one-note jazz and samba trends, whose aim was to create the most with the least. That effect, while certainly unintentional, makes sense with the fact of sound the band employs. How quickly and smoothly they change gears from three-chord licks to sudden engrossing theatrics in dynamic sound, all while playing the same three chords. The most one can do with this little is to deepen the sound, play with the intricate detail, have tracks like “This Mystic Decade” change key, add a string to the fret, and suddenly go all bass-loaded in the chorus. It makes for an instantly recognisable effect that, paired with the band’s already boiling song-writing technique and Rick Froberg’s distinct higher-pitch vocal yelp, is an identity so familiar, yet unique, none has yet replicated it.
Simplicity is the key when it comes to
Audit in Progress, and indeed most of Hot Snakes’ work. It is either the aforementioned clever use in the change of key and depth, or a whole other kind of build-up like on “Lovebirds”, whose progression is like a cement mixer slowly suffocating and hardening an unfortunate fool who has fallen into it. The song drones on and on, mechanically increasing its intensity, rolling out distortion, paving way for its two follow-up, “Reflex” and “Hair and DNA” to pose perfect contrast with its harmonic idiosyncrasy, making for about the most captivating, head-rocking two-punch cuts on the record. That is until the closing “Plenty for All” wraps the frame of the pathologically comfortable punk excursions the band has been propagating, while also allowing itself some guitar noodlings not quite typical for a Hot Snakes song, but fitting perfectly nonetheless, saying essentially “this is the end anyway, so *** it, all cards on the table”.
So concludes another short-lived, loud-screamed, style-drilling outing from Reis and Froberg for a moment, until their eventual reunion with the band and
Jericho Sirens blistering comeback like nobody’s business in 2018. But for a time in the early 00s it seemed like the duo once again finished playing with their toys. Finished, that is, by burning them to the ground and laughing maniacally. Their brand of punk and songwriting methods, often seeming to be very random and as if in-the-moment spurs of energy, are as a matter of fact thoroughly detailed, deliberate, and good-witted. Their artwork, often depicting satirical or provocative copier cut outs, has now become iconic and emulated by many contemporaries and followers. Their sound, even outside of Hot Snakes, has become so recognisable and authentic that you stand a chance of hearing self-proclaimed punk aficionados claim that either Hot Snakes, Drive Like Jehu, Obits, Rocket from the Crypt (maybe even Pitchfork) are one influence of the other, without realising the relation between the bands (author’s note: this has actually happened to me, a fella said that Hot Snakes are obviously some band “trying too hard to sound like the guys from Drive Like Jehu”). These are the works of an acquired skill that can be applied to a plethora of styles, but only under the wings of its grandaddies Reis and Froberg, can it become this distinct, this iconic, this hot and snakey. cha-cha-chaa
