Review Summary: Some bands are only meant to be heard live.
Chances are that you will not read too many bad reviews of The Snowdroppers’ debut album ‘Too Late To Pray’. It is not the kind of release that is going to pick up too many casual listeners, since the rockabilly quartet from Sydney ply their trade in a genre that has not stormed the charts for many decades. As such, the band are likely to be preaching to the converted; either fans of the musical style, or those impressed during a live support slot. Having not seen them live myself is no hindrance in coming to the latter conclusion. Some bands are only meant to be heard live, and The Snowdroppers are clearly one of them.
Having said that, opener ‘Do The Stomp’ is likely to gain some degree of attention. Beginning with a steady beat and some harmonica, the repetitive – yet infectious – sing-along chorus of “I’ve been working hard, woh yeah, all night” may be simple, but provides one of the few true hooks of the LP. Elsewhere, only the killer guitar lick and catchy chorus of ‘Swear It On The Bible’ comes close. That’s not to say that there are no other worthwhile tracks evident on ‘Too Late To Pray’, because there are. The modernized rock’n’roll of ‘F*cked Up Blues’, the rapid-fire ‘Bottom of the Trough’ and the rollicking ‘Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms’ all have merit, but seem incomplete and a little desperate to be noticed.
The main issue with ‘Too Late To Pray’ is not so much in it’s better songs, but the depths to which its poorer tracks plummet. The swaggering ‘Good Drugs Bad Women’ will undoubtedly have its fans, but with closing lyrics like “So suck on my dick and give my balls a good lickin’, coz there ain’t nothing finer than good drugs & bad women”, it’s sure to have just as many detractors. Meanwhile, as the second half of the album heads in a swampy Southern (U.S.A) blues direction, it all gets rather boring. The fact that these songs are also the longest of the album by far makes it all the more worse.
It is not as if The Snowdroppers do not give their all… Lead vocalist and banjo player Johnny Wishbone (a Matt Damon look-alike who is presumably named after Eddie Murphy’s psychic alter-ego from ‘Beverly Hills Cop 2’) tries his darnedest to convince us he can pull off any role, but sums it up best when he bellows “I’ve never been to Kentucky. Lord, I’ve never been to Tennessee”. Musically, a virtual smorgasbord is used as an attempt to spice things up, with banjo, harmonica, trombone, saxophone & organ all coming into play. Yet, it’s a tell-tale sign that the good ol’ electric guitar ultimately comes off as the most effective instrument.
Taking their name from a 1920’s slang term for cocaine addicts, The Snowdroppers perform songs that come off as somewhere between nursery rhymes and a hillbilly sing-along. For a sound so dated, they actually do a half-decent job of modernizing their bluesy rockabilly style, but it still falls a little short of resulting in a complete and accomplished debut full-length release. Often sounding too desperate to seek attention on record, it is exactly the type of music that would go down in an entertaining fashion at the local pub on a Saturday night. Then again, most music does when you’re as drunk as a skunk.
Recommended Tracks: Swear It On The Bible, Do The Stomp & F*cked Up Blues.
