Like most things these days, egg punk was born as a meme and nurtured by a desperate desire to solidify novelty into substance. Snooper from Nashville, Tennessee are egg punk, though they have nothing to do with the short-lived bacon ‘n’ roll scene that sprang up and first sizzled in Balham at the turn of the century. They are the cheery antithesis of maudlin masochists such as Sniper Culture, Axe Rash, and Heavy Discipline. They are possibly one of thousands of lockdown projects that got out of hand and turned into bands. Founding members Blair Tramel and Connor Cummins were initially content to share content through the ether, and now they’re releasing their second album, Worldwide, through a label co-owned by Jack White.
There’s no messing about on ‘Opt Out’, which starts with ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’ drums at twice the speed plus grimy guitar stabs that bear more than a passing resemblance to INXS’ ‘I Need You Tonight’. “I was misled / In my head / No room to explore,” claims Tramel, and there’s no time to explore either, as the track makes way for ‘On Line’, which begins like Gang of Four smashing up the common room at Leeds University. It’s a minute and 13 seconds long, which is in the mid-range of songs-to-play-whilst-hurtling-off-a-cliff. Such gleeful piss-take Dead Kennedys abandon is front and centre on ‘Company Car’, on which Tramel boasts: “I’ve got the keys to the company car / Come with me and we’ll go real far.” It includes bonus squiggly guitar lines like a crayon-wielding toddler wrecking a wedding suite. If Devo did a collab with Killing Joke, would it sound like ‘Worldwide’? Rhetorical questions in music reviews are rubbish, aren’t they?
Punk is all about snarl. The perfect punk name is The Snarlers and the perfect punk song title is ‘Oi! Eat S**t!’ But the second best punk song title is ‘Guard Dog’, and it’s a good job that Snooper have written a song with this title. It’s very fast, like one of Mr Burns’ hounds. Talking of which, ‘Hologram’ is within the region of ‘Territorial Pissings’, but with 12 seconds of malfunctioning laser beams as an intro. ‘Star *69’ is a lyrical and aural mission statement. “Urgency / Can you hear me?” Tramel asks in a remarkably calm manner while her bandmates employ soundwaves to create holes in the walls. ‘Blockhead’ shares the name of a Devo song, but there the comparison ends. One can only imagine Henry Rollins listening to it and ruefully wondering whether he could have added a tiny bit more energy.
All Beatles songs played at triple speed sound like The Hives, as demonstrated by Snooper’s cover of ‘Come Together’. ‘Pom Pom’ is even more frantic than REM’s ‘It’s The End Of The World’, and features a bass line lower than Peter Hook’s socks. ‘Relay’ metamorphoses from sinister suburban zombie soundtrack into the best example of controlled chaos bar none. On ‘Subdivision’ city night noises squeak, howl, and blare over a Neu! motorik beat, before a distorted Yeah Yeah Yeahs ending. And thus ends the album, tantalising us with a track that indicates a future beyond the goofiness of food-based genres, retro album covers, and dare-you-to-bash-it-faster guitar. Snooper are having a laugh, but you can tell they’re serious.
Worldwide is out on 3rd October via Third Man Records
