SNAKE is a rising Stockholm-based noise punk trio, featuring old friends Mia Maria Johansson (guitar, vocals), Madeleine Frankie (synths, Theremin, vocals) and Tess De La Cour (drums). Tracing its origins back to 2014, the band found the longtime friends doing something decidedly different from any of their previously work: completely analog garage punk centered around heavily distorted guitars, trashy drums and filthy old synthesizers that the band says is dark without being overly emo rock and yet raw and hard without being full on hardcore punk.
A month after their formation, the band landed their first gig — and shortly after that, the band began booking gigs across Sweden, eventually sharing stages with Chinese punk act Fan Zui Xian Fa, Bass Drum of Death and Refused among others. Building upon a growing national profile, the band released their Stefan Brändström-recorded and engineered debut, 2015’s Cradle of Snake, which the band supported with a European tour during October and November of that year. The following year, the band won the Year’s Rock Award at the 2016 Manifest Awards.
“Falling,” which continues the band’s ongoing collaboration with Stefan Brändström, and interestingly enough, the track is simultaneously, the first bit of new material from the rising Swedish indie act in four years — and the first single of their sophomore album. which is slated for a fall 2020 release. Clocking in at a little over four minutes, the track sonically — to my ears — finds the band meshing L7, Bikini Kill and 90s Riot Grrl punk with the tense and grimy synth punk of JOVM mainstays Nots and Prettiest Eyes, as the song is centered around distorted power chords, propulsive and steady drumming, howled vocals and a rousing hook. Simply put, the song is a mosh pit friendly anthem that’s deceptively anachronistic: it sounds as though it could have been released in 1993, 2003 — or yesterday.
Directed by Per Norman, the recently released video is a fittingly 120 Minutes MTV-like visual, in which we see the heavily made up members rocking out and moving in a frenetic fashion — before quickly switching to playing a house party in front of a cool bunch of local Swedes.
