Customer Reviews

Bring On The Snakes

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The same friend that turned me onto Pinetop Seven and Cat Power recommended this album- another glorious find! The voice here is a dead-ringer for Neil Diamond (not meant as any sort of slight)- it's full and beautiful and does a wonderful job of conveying the sadness and desperation in the words. The arrangements are pretty spare with a little bit of keyboard and high atmospheric guitar-drone adding to the constant of acoustic guitar and voice. The songs are fairly similar to one another but this seems to make it all the easier to lose yourself in the music. If you like either of the other bands I mentioned then you'll definitely enjoy this.

In Crooked Fingers, Eric Bachman has created two masterpieces of albums that any self-respecting melancholy music fan should own. Best described as melodic drunken bar music, Bring On The Snakes is a story cd above any others, crafting and weaving the best song tales since Bob Dylan. If you love AoL, great. If you hate them-well, too bad, but that's no reason not to get this completely different, vastly superior effort. A perfect album.

Do you remember the line from the movie 'American Beauty', the one about sometimes things being so beautiful you don't think that your heart can stand it? It describes this album.

The music washes over you, filing you, yet leaving you hollowed out and open and wanting more even as the music is playing. The guitar and vocals and percussion blend beautifully, and are like an out-of-body experience.

I lost my breath the first time i heard this album, and sometimes i get so carried away by it i need to remind myself to breathe. Take my word for it, stop reading the reviews, and just buy it. You'll be glad you did.

This second record seems unfairly judged as the weak sibling of the lineup, but there's not a single loser here, songwise. Maybe it's a little less sure-footed as a unit?, as Bachmann clearly has a lot of directions in mind.

Try "Doctors of Deliverance" to get a feel for this album's general tempo, or "Every Dull Moment" as the most finessed electric guitar in the entire catalog. All his different potentials are alluded to here, "Surrender is Treason" back toward the first album, "The Rotting Strip" toward the next Red Devil Dawn, and "Devil's Train" toward Bachmann's later solo record, To The Races. But "Here Comes the Snakes" might encapsulate the appeal of the entire body of work, both sad and stirring and so nimbly delicate.

Overall, this would be the album to play later at the party, when everyone is talked out and wants to just shut up and be transported into their own private reflections, while in the company of good friends.

this album follows in the footsteps of the 1st crooked fingers album although meanders off the path after the 1st song(Which could have easily been lifted off of the 1st album). while populated by sad sack characters and pathetically addicted people this album offers hope at the end of the long night the debut album began. sparse,acoustic arrangements, female backup vocals, note the beautiful balladry of "sad love", the intricate appreggios, fingerpicking, the scratchy, cigarette beaten voice, the archers of loaf didn't break up, they just grew up.(no offense guys-i'd be 1st in line if you guys got back together. buy this if you have any sense.

Crooked Fingers returns from last years amazing debut without a string section- but with a much more focused sound. Mostly electronic instrumentation back up Eric Bachmann's winding guitar and heartfelt stories on this one hitting true in all the right spots. Excellent songwriting. Bukowski meets Eno meets Dylan meets Diamond in a late night diner. Highly Recommended!

If I was stuck on a deserted island and could only bring one album, this would be it. Moody, passionate, this album is both beautiful and sad at the same time. Musically, it's some kind of trance Appalachian rock folk for this generation. That is, it captures the way most of the current generation feels. Every song is about being lost, or broken, or old and worn. The singer is obsessed with finding the cure, the rebirth, becoming new again. Just maybe, he finds it by the last track, There's A Blue Light. Someone said this is the new Bob Dylan. I wouldn't disagree. But its darker, more sinister. You could easily put this album on, and stare at the wall in apathy with tears in your eyes before realizing you've just listened to the entire thing. But it is not just that there is a sad overtone to the music here. Beauty can bring tears as well. This album is so perfect it makes me cry. Buy this album, but also get the first self-titled one, which is nearly as good as (or on some days is even better than) this one. But beware: Listening to Crooked Fingers will make all other music sound dull in comparison for the rest of your life.

see him live, truly unbelievable. 4/13/01 village under ground!

The reviewer who compared the singer's voice to Neil Diamond was right on, and in a good way. Imagine if Neil Diamonf had recorded his own "Nebraska," and you get a preliminary picture of what this album is. It's powerful stuff, surprisingly more coherent than anything the Archers ever did.

this album follows in the footsteps of the first album... unfortunately. something must have happened to eric between the loafsters splitting up and before his barry black album, something bad. where is the essential great song foundations with superb lyrics to follow, you sense he is trying to hard to prove he can 'move on', and sadly he's not doing what he does best.