Info: Criminally underrated noise rock four piece, That Snaake have returned with what they are calling “a Christmas song”. But there are no sleigh bells or a goodwill-to-all message here.
Right in the opening, the song paraphrases Mein Herr from 'Caberet', Bob Fossé's musical about people being too tied up with their own lives to pay much attention to the rise of fascism in inter-war Germany. And it gets darker from there. The dreamlike malaise and fear of the guitar refrain is broken up by huge crashes as the singer begins talking of more trivial matters – like crying over lost relationships, disappointing Star Wars movies, and fears before the song really kicks in.
From there on in, the foot is on the accelerator. Spurious claims of victim-hood are spat out over a steamroller grunge riff – which brings to mind Nirvana at their hay-day; even before it's knowingly referenced ("Just because you're paranoid, don't mean we didn't steal this song"). The whole piece ends in an instrumental freak out with the drums and guitar trading ugly barbs over ominous statement – "We're all getting dogs for Christmas / next year we'll eat our young."
Of the track the group say:
"We wrote 'Dogs' quite some time ago. But since then a lot of the song seems to have come true. But that's another story... Really it's about getting caught up with the insularity of the holiday while quietly dreading the rise of global fascism. This year as we're heading to xmas, the far right are gaining power in France and we've got a hotel in Donegal being burned out by fascists from abroad because it was going to be turned into a Direct Provision centre (our own type of internment camp). So it feels like the time to put it out there."
The B-Side – fOUNDLING
The Bandcamp download comes with a b-side, 'Foundling'. A stripped back lofi track that concerns itself with The Dublin Foundling Hospital (a hospital that euthanized over 40,000 children in the 18th and 19th century) and the apparently gaping psychic wound that is now covered by Heuston Station.
https://thatsnaake.bandcamp.com/
