Sunset Rubdown - Snake's Got A Leg
artist: Sunset Rubdown
title: Snake's Got A Leg
label: Global Symphonic
type: Album
genre: Indie
source: CDDA
tracks: 12
time: 00:35:28
size: 35.78 MB
bitrate: 155kbps
mode: VBR
location: -
url: http://www.ampcamp.com/product_info.php?cPath=466&products_id=1335
rip date: 14.07.2006
street date: ??/??/2005
1. The Dust You Kick Up Is Too Fi 1:01
2. Snake's Got A Leg 4:03
3. I'll Believe In Anything You'll Believe In 4:50
Anything
4. Hey You Handsome Vulture 1:36
5. Hope You Don't Stoop To Dirty Words 1 4:12
6. Hope You Don't Stoop To Dirty Words 2 2:48
7. Cecil's Bells 1:46
8. I Know The Weight Of Your Throat 2:52
9. Sol's Song 4:05
10. Stadiums And Shrines 3:02
11. Snake's Got A Leg II 3:53
12. Portrait Of A Shiny Metal Boy 1:20
One of the byproducts of the great backlash against indie
rock that occurred in the early '00s is the notion that lo-
fi is an illegitimate tool, the go-to cover-up for artists
short on cash, patience, and ideas. It's an understandable
aversion, given the long trail of refuse left in the wake of
Slanted & Enchanted and Bee Thousand; bands seemed to think
a respectable career could be bought with a four-track and a
whole lotta reverb. But it's also easy to forget what an
effective tool the home-studio process can be when used
properly-- creating unexpected, unique sounds and enveloping
the music in an intimate blanket.
Spencer Krug's project under the name Sunset Rubdown seems
to be aware of the tightrope that needs to be walked with lo-
fi production, but he can't help ending up on the wrong side
more often than not. Krug can be found spending his days
with animal-themed acts Frog Eyes and Wolf Parade, but saves
his nights for recording sparse, echo-dipped ballads for
this moniker, at least one of which has already been recycled
for one of his other bands' more-fidelitous recordings.
Snake's Got a Leg therefore seems a little bit like a solo
project, a little bit like demos, and the music contained
within is similarly torn between fully realized and
undercooked.
The elements Krug makes most prominent in his bedroom studio
are his own pinched, Bowie-esque voice and a variety of
keyboards, both outlined in a thick border of fuzz by
heaping helpings of reverb. The echobox treatment does a good
job of filling in the gaps left by the spare arrangements,
and gives what are presumably rather normal instruments an
extraterrestrial flair, as with the organ or Rhodes or Two-
buck Casio that "I'll Believe in Anything You'll Believe in
Anything" floats on. Pretty-okay acoustic & singin' tracks
like "Stadiums and Shrines" or "I Know the Weight of Your
Throat" might still sound like a guy in a basement with a
tape-recorder, but at least the skillful application of lo-
fi makes the song sound like it was made in a haunted
basement, and sometime in the 1920's to boot.
Unfortunately, the audio environment also makes it very
difficult to tell whether there's anything of substance
beneath the sea of hiss. Krug's Ziggy Stardust vocals will
probably make or break the album for most people; I can
already see the "for fans of Arcade Fire & Clap Your Hands
Say Yeah!" stickers. If you can't swallow this kind of over-
dramatized singing, there's little to distract you on
Snake's Got a Leg, as Krug doesn't add much more than the
occasional off-rhythm handclap or ghostly accordion to the
piano and guitar accompaniments.
Even instrumental tracks won't satisfy: the musicbox-like
"Sol's Song" is relentlessly cyclical, and the promisingly
electronic "Cecil's Bells" fragments and fades out before
achieving anything more than making weird noises. But the
production of weird noises oftentimes seem the main goal of
Sunset Rubdown, with the rare intrusions of solid
songwriting ("Snake's Got a Leg II", "I'll Believe in
Anything") feeling as accidental as the distorted notes.
Unlike most lo-fi artists, determining whether Krug is a
shallow talent hiding behind his Tascam can be somewhat
objectively tested, thanks to the Wolf Parade material
seeping out this summer. In that professionally recorded
setting, Krug's songs sound simultaneously less compelling
and more complete than the material on Sunset Rubdown-- Wolf
Parade are another of the above-average indie-compendium
type acts we can't help falling in love with, but the proper
studio reins in some of the weirdness of Krug's yelps.
Ultimately, however, with the two album's near-simultaneous
release, the more accessible Wolf Parade likely makes the
rough-edged lo-fi experiments of Sunset Rubdown a mere
novelty throwback.
Greets goes out to :
ATX, BLZ, BWA, CR, ESC, GTi, hbZ, krbZ, PR, RAGEMP3, rXn, SSR,
TDU, TSP, UTB, XXL, uC, WHOA, ... and all the others we have forgot.
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