As a teenager in the 90s, and a reader of the music weeklies (remember those?), I was aware of Snuff, but somehow managed to mis them or otherwise fail to notice their presence despite being John Peel regulars. I can’t remember now if I was actually aware of their single ‘Whatever Happened to the Likely lads?’ or it’s a memory blur on account of the title.
Anyway. They’re still going, after reforming in 94 (before if was cool to do so), and have been knocking out releases fairly steadily over the last 20 years. One suspects that their fanbase is pretty much static, but that’s fair enough: just because capitalism has conditioned us to aim for endless exponential growth, it’s actually ok to accept the attainment of a sustainable level and simply sustain it.
The contents of this six-tracker very much finds the band playing to the converted, with a selection of fairly standard-sounding punk rock tunes. As such, there isn’t much to say about it, other than it does what it does and chugs away, ploughing a furrow of perfectly passable pub-punk for the first four tracks.
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‘The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling’ starts out as a slow-bounce ska-punk jaunt before going all out on a hell for leather roustabout oi knees-up. This, for me, is a special kind of personal hell, and it’s only intensified when the horns, and the cockney terrace chanter ‘King of the Wild Frontier’ is the sound of braces being twanged by pissed-up skinheads with additional humorous fart sounds. ‘Do you really think we give a shit about you?’ they chant jubilantly.
The question could be passed back quite justifiably, but the sentiment has merit in a culture of self-centrism, and standard as it is, The Wrath of Thoth is solid, and does the job it’s designed for.
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