Customer Reviews

Suicide Invoice

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

 

 

theres something in the water in san diego. too many good bands for so long have been just ripping up the norms of the rock scene and patchworking it together to make some of the most interesting, intense music on the scene today. quick rundown for you music geeks. it started with bands like DRIVE LIKE JEHU, SWING KIDS, THE LOCUST, HEROIN, and CLICKITAT IKATOWI. chaotic aggresive rock at its best. if youre reading this and dont know these bands, look em up. all have blistering guitar work, mathmatical drumming, and manical passionate vocals. then comes HEAVY VEGETBALE (rob crowe!), THREE MILE PILOT (ABSIV!) and ROCKET FROM THE CRYPT (ex drive like jehu) just more intense unique rock music, bordering on indie, more instrumentation. then BLACK HEART PROCESSION (clickitat + three mile pilot) PINBACK (the best ever! three mile and rob crowe) TRISTEZA (ex swing kids/ locust) and the incredibly beautiful simplicity of the ALBUM LEAF (also james from tristeza/ swing kids/ locust) now comes the HOT SNAKES. YES!!!! back to the days of old, the days of heroin and drive like jehu, but theres something more mature about this new project. HOT SNAKES is the drive like jehu guys doing what they shouldve kept doing. This IS rock music. its dirty, its dense, its introspective, and its angry. theres no heavy metal or chugga-chugga here. heroin and drive like jehus screechec vocals trake a backseat to a more monotonal singing style that some fans will be used to. the guitar interplay is great. dense weaving distorted guitars gallop in and out of thick meaty bass lines with the drum fills to match. While mildy abrasive at times, this is music to get you movin. punk fans rejoice!! youre punk music has been lacking something for years now. this is what its been lacking. strokes, hives, and liars, take note - this is the intensity, the rawness, the sexiness youve been searching for in your vain noodlings. this is rock music at its most stripped down and its sounds amazing. if the unusual guitar lines seem to confusing or chaotic, then just wait, i guarantee you will be thirsting for it after a few listens, and all your blink 182 and sum 41 records will just seem pale in comparison. for fans of this, please check out all the other groups listed above. san diego is making the best music in the country right now. and its not on MTV. do yourself a favor and just read some reviews for the above listed bands, and see if theres not something for you and for anyone else you know. i'd bet you money you'll be a fan, but this is the internet and im just talking to myself. HA!

This album is worth your money. Don't bother downloading.This album is perfect. Amazing. They don't make albums much better. The reason you should buy this album is so the people in this band will make some money like they deserve, so they don't have to work day jobs and can devote all their time to making more albums so good. "LAX" is one of the most devastating, blast it out of your car with the windows or top down on a hot summer day songs you will ever hear.
This should be what's on heavy rotation on radio and video stations. For my money no better guitar player LIVES than John Reis. Why have guitar magazines basically ignored this living legend? Because they're stupid. And Rick Froberg is amazing at everything he does. This whole band, just, Rules. And this record proves it. Buy, Nancy Boy.

Let's face it people, aggression and isolation are pretty commonplace within music today. It's become incredibly difficult to turn on the radio and not hear a hard rockin' band with angst ridden vocals. We have become so accustomed to this sound, that we don't really hear it anymore. In a lot of ways this is bad, but in some ways it's good. Because when something offbeat, brazen, electrifying and just plain good comes along we truly hear it. Sometimes it's the best thing in the world.
This is the case with Hot Snakes sophomore effort, `Suicide Invoice.' Don't get me wrong, Hot Snakes have a hard garage- rock type of sound, but they also have style. John Reis' guitar attacks through every song, giving it the heart and Rick Froberg's vocals howls though every word giving it soul. This is how rock `n' roll should be.
`Suicide Invoice' is more somber and moodier than their debut album, `Automatic Midnight.' Some may even say it's mellower. Tracks like, `Why does it hurt' are about damaged love and how it affects everyone involved. `Unlisted' is a kiss off to society in general, disguised as a pop song. Even the title track `Suicide Invoice' is slightly more vulnerable and melodic than past anthems. When Rick proclaims, ` When I dream, I keep my promises to you. I really do' it seems so exposed that you almost want to believe him.
There are several songs reminiscent of the bands raw, biting sound heard on `Automatic Midnight.' `Gar forgets his insulin' and `I hate the kids' have the rage filled, fist clenched tone that the band has become infamous for. `Who died' is a diatribe about how no one notices you're gone and how they're glad it wasn't them. Also, there are some charming tunes about the wonders of aerodynamics and the joy of paperwork. `Paperwork' is about how everyone has something to gain off paperwork except for you.
Hot snakes are a rock band in every sense of the word. They punch you in the stomach, then pick you up and dust you off for more. `Automatic Midnight' scratches the surface and shows what this band is capable of. On `Suicide Invoice' this band digs much deeper and shows they are more than awesome, booming guitar chords. Hot Snakes show a wide range of emotional grandstanding, everything from love, hate, to indifference. Rock bands of the world take note, there's more to the equation than aggression and isolation. Hot Snakes have seemed to discover the other variables and they aren't sharing.

John Reis never ceases to amaze me. Not only was he one of the guys behind Drive Like Jehu, but today he is involved in three amazing bands (Hot Snakes, Rocket from the Crypt, The Sultans). This guy, along with his brothers from the west coast know hot to rock.
This album is about rocking out, and is the best thing the Snakes have put out so far. It has all the fist shaking furry of rock music. Tracks like "Gar Forgets His Insulin" burn the air.
This album really didn't do anything amazing, but it sound like everything rock music should sound like. It's fast, angry, and scathing, truly a great album.

A great mind of the century once wrote the line: "If on Saturday I should relish in overindulgent progressive rock, then let me redeem myself; on Monday, give me Hot Snakes!"

In the eighties and nineties one could easily say this is the era of new wave, rap, grunge, hair metal, etc,... In 2002 popular music was a corpse being kicked by itself and a million fanboys on web-forums. Buzz words like "Garage Rock" were bubbling up around speculation of a messianic next nirvana. And so we had Strokes and White Stripes, we swung on Vines and got Hives, and then we just exhausted ourselves with Von Bondies and Star Spangles, and by that time metalcore, dance-punk, and British rap were vying for a spot in the dying sun.

Hot Snakes, by coincidence merely, were at the top of their game in 2002, but contemporary ears whose memory last but a few seconds could only relegate the Snakes to punk rock or indie-supergroup status. More intelligent ears should of and did hear a band that was taking what IS the garage aesthetic and turning it up, pissing it off, and churning it out onto a public dulled down from painkillers, desk jobs, and instant gratification.

Suicide Invoice finds the perfect intersection of soundwaves from 1963, 1977, and 2002. Rick Froberg leads the pack like a meth-addicted Sam the Sham with the symphony of John Reis and Jason Kourkounis adding to his rock n' rage. What results is a pummeling 12-track festival of dissident rock music. Suicide Invoice has the dirty swing of MC5 with a Rush-like tightness. The songs here have an AC/DC-like uniformity, they do not veer too far off from a basic formula, but it is a formula that works. Froberg shouts his laments and his call meets the response of the downstroke counterpoint of Reis. Extra points go to drummer Kourkounis for providing incessant rollicking on the toms, giving the album a true '60's garage feel, as he does not overdo the cymbals or snare.

Content? Well, Hot Snakes hate the kids indeed. As tracks like "Unlisted", "Paperwork", and the title track indicate, this is a tablet of release against a modern world where office jobs dull the senses, relationships leave one in a never ending state of ennui, and political correctness turns people into zombies. This is the punk rock Dostoevsky would have been listening to had he not sold his i-Pod for booze. Not so much the pissed off kid as it is the disenchanted college graduate telling the pissed off kid at the 7-11 to pull his pants up.

I guess if I remember correctly, that 2002 would of been a time when rap music was whiter than ever, guys started to dress like girls...again, and punk music drank Mountain Dew. If anybody got the chance to see Hot Snakes live in support of Suicide Invoice (I did) it might very well of left them as pissed as Froberg. We just wanted to rock, haircuts and t-shirts aside, we just wanted to rock.

P.S. -- Rocket from the Crypt and Drive Like Jehu (apparently you have to mention that at some point in a Hot Snakes review).

For the kids who find Blink 182 and other more slickly produced happy Cali product to be the definition of the term, I point them in the direction of this album for something that hits a lot closer to the bullseye. Fatalistic and hopeful, dirty yet crisp, noisy and smooth. As others have pointed out, there's a great interplay of guitars on this album that hold a lot more menace than most records can muster these days, the vocals somehow manage to be one-note yet never repetitive, and the rhythm section is damn tight. Highly recommended rock and roll.

Hot Snakes are a phenomenal project with an all-star lineup of members of Drive Like Jehu, Rocket From The Crypt, Burning Brides, and a bunch of other bands I can't think of right now. This is their sophomore effort, and it's absolutely incredible. They say that this is what Drive Like Jehu would have sounded like if they had continued, and that's a very good thing. Buy this if you like DLJ or RFTC or good old fashioned rock and roll.

A few people have asked me what Hot Snakes sound like, so I replied "A mix of RFTC/Drive Like Jehu and the more straight ahead rock of Sonic Youth."

Everything you loved (or hated) from "Automatic Midnight" is here: John's excellent guitar work, Rick's original voice, and the great artwork. Althought their debut was full of great lyrics, they deal with different and better lyrical subjects this time around. Also, the production quality is much better this time around.

If you're new to the Hot Snakes, I'd suggest buying both albums at once. This is without a doubt, a great follw up album.

Of all the screaming "guy rock" on the radio these days, there's not one who wouldn't be standing in a skinny tie and Flock Of Seagulls haircut, playing a Casio keyboard and looking bored in that all too familiar European manner, if this were say, 1981 (see: Stone Temple Pilots, Creed, other screamers, et al.) But Rick Froberg and Co. rest assured don't go with the flow. Simply put: They rock the house with the brute force...a force appropriate to their themes of alienation and frustration.

In my opinion, the album is too short and too restrained for what these guys are capable of doing--Hot Snakes delivers black themes without the loose ends of the similar Drive Like Jehu, and does it well, but many of those loose ends help to underscore the raw power of these artists. Whatever the case, I'm buying the next one the second it becomes available.

The Hot Snakes have squirmed their way into my head, and they don't show any signs of leaving. The first time I heard this album, I knew it rocked... but I had to play it a few times before it's genius really dawned on me. Now it's one of my favorite albums of all time. Just listen to the creepy intro to "I Hate the Kids", the loud, catchy chorus of "Paid in Cigarettes", the intense urgency of the guitar riffs during the finale of "LAX".. then you'll have some idea of how unique and utterly spell-binding this album is. If you like your music smart, complex, and loud, then you should buy this album without a second thought. You won't regret it.