Snowman The Horse, The Rat and The Swan by: Thomas Mendelovitis Thu:05-Jun-08 Label: Dot Dash Year: 2008 WB rating 75 out of 100

Just like the extolled snare hit that began ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ and Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, Snowman announce their second album’s arrival with a similarly grand statement: three hits on rock ‘n roll’s most integral instrument and we’re off and running. Don’t worry about the other sundry sonic colours peppering this record, primal rhythms are what Snowman are all about. The result is an album that is energetic, raw and fierce. Often described as ‘tribal’, perhaps an apt description considering their reliance on ‘primitive’ (a term used warily) drum patterns and directly moody atmospherics, Snowman nonetheless avoid the drab by-products of repetition. At a brisk nine tracks of modest length, The Horse, The Rat and The Swan manages to continually engage the listener – a hard ask in this age of supposedly deteriorating attention spans.

The beats on The Horse, The Rat and The Swan are most definitely what lend Snowman their propulsive force, but the band are no one-trick ponies. When the gothic surf guitar of opener ‘Our Mother (She Remembers)’ moves to some classy vintage synth augmentation, the move to melody is unmistakable. Though initially Andy Citawarman’s distinguishing screamed vocals may suggest the opposite, Snowman are surprisingly strong in the tune department. ‘We Are The Plague’ continues in the same minimalist vein. A strong syncopated drum riff provides the main theme, the song’s tune delivered in distant robotic vocal snatches and ghostly “oohs”. Furthering the melody is a guitar arpeggio motif, which both kicks the rhythm in and signals the return of Citawarman’s screams halfway through the track. And therein lies the main attraction of Snowman in a nutshell; for any band choosing this idiosyncratic mode of vocals, the allure of keeping firmly to them will be tempting to maintain cohesiveness in the all important ‘sound’ of the band. Snowman are confident enough to explore the boundaries of this sound and as a result The Horse, The Rat and The Swan rewards repeated listens.

This exploratory approach threatens too, however. While the Aussie larrikin yelping is the predominant vocal mould, when second vocalist Joe McKee takes lead duties (‘The Blood of the Swan’, ‘Diamond Wounds’) the vibe is the Mike Patton guttural whispers of California-era Mr. Bungle. As such, there is a Jekyll and Hyde quality to the album. While they seek to transcend this opposition as on the rhythmic backing screams of ‘Diamond Wounds’, you can’t help but feel that Snowman have two creative powers demanding their own possession of the Snowman sound.

Furthermore, the ebb and flow of this album is another failing point. A fabulous collection of tracks more than a great album perhaps, Snowman choose a strange middle section for a band basing their effect so much on unkempt rage in volume and rhythm. After the very Drones-ish tone of ‘Daniel Was a Timebomb’, we get 10 or so minutes of studio-as-instrument ambience in ‘A Re-Birth’, ‘She Is Turning Into You’ and ‘The Horse (Part 1)’. Things kick off again with ‘Part 2’, again recalling Mr. Bungle in the use of Balinese kecak ritualistic screams. Unlike Patton, who probably saw the ritual in the film Baraka and borrowed the bizarre kecak “chaks” for his music, Citawarman is of Javanese descent and could perhaps stake more claim to authenticity. The Indonesian bent is also evident on the gamelan sounding bells of ‘She Is Turning Into You’, another example of the diverse and interesting aesthetic touches Snowman employ.

Perth bands have an inherent quality: what they lose in airfares, they make up for in isolation myths. With a McKee, a Citawarman, a Di Blasio and a Hermanniusson they are quintessentially Australian, but at the same time they’re a weird twist on what it means to be an Aussie band. Citawarman sounds as though he could be from no other country and, indeed, Snowman have been touted as the band to lead the crest of the wave of new Australian punk alongside other international hopefuls The Drones, My Disco and Love of Diagrams. The Horse, The Rat and The Swan showcases the band’s immense talents, and is a step above the simplistic surf-swamp of their debut. Before they reach truly great heights, however, there remains some ironing out to do concerning the singularity of their sound and in the creative structuring of a three-dimensionally strong album.