These Arms Are Snakes

‘Tail Swallower And Dove’

(Suicide Squeeze)

A nasty racket of progressive post-hardc
ore from the Seattle qu
artet of doom, These Arms Are Snakes third album is to be taken deadly seriously; ‘Tail Swallower And Dove’ is for the kind of person who carefully considers the social implications of the band t-shirt they happen to be wearing, and who spends a lot of time debating the ins and outs of Fugazi’s creative influences on online music f
orums. Shiners come in the f
orm of the darkly dancey ‘Lucifer’ and the panic-stricken female screeching in the background to ‘Red Line Season’. ‘Woolen Heirs’, meanwhile, opens with a driving f
orce comparable to that of a rocket-fuelled bulldozer bef
ore descending into a tangled mess of noise. Make no mistake, this album is hard going, and will require a Rennie
or two to digest.  

Jessica Hazel