Snog – Lullabies For The Lithium Age (Album – Metropolis)
Genre/Influences: Ambient, experimental, electronic, electro-wave.
Format: Digital, CD, Vinyl.
Background/Info: David Thrussell strikes back with the first new Snog album in five years. The Australian sound guru is now busy for more than thirty years and remains a pioneer when it comes to electro-underground music. What is this album all about? Hard to say, Thrussell remaining hard to seize, but it appears the album reflects the hard mental health the artist went through during the past years. Notice by the way the CD features some extra cuts.
Content: Hard to say if ‘lithium’ is linked to the medical therapy prescribed by manic-depressive patients, but the main thing is the content of this work. Snog has probably accomplished his most atmospheric work to date. The album is hard to define and impossible to label. “Spätzle Machine” clearly appears to be the ‘hit’ from the album, being more into danceable rhythms and carried by a cool chorus. The other songs left are more like music you can listen to while sitting in a lazy chair. The songs are part of reverie, but still with emotional passages. The piano sound arrangements are accentuating the sensitive part of the work. The whispering, half spooky like vocals are accentuating this feeling, like an artist showing the fragility hiding behind the person he is.
+ + + : What I for sure will remind for this album is the “Spätzle Machine”-song, which is for sure one of the best cuts composed by Snog in years. The other main thing I’ll keep in mind is the soft and reverie-driven side of the album. It sounds like a hidden side from Snog, David Thrussell has not shared with his audience before. The titles are enigmatic, sometimes intriguing (cf. “Lee Harvey Oswald”), but clearly filled with sensibility. This element has been accentuated by subtle sound arrangements –which however remain a trademark of the artist. The orchestral epilogue featured on “Death Is Only A Dream” is another attention grabber.
– – – : For so far I can remind this album must be the softest ones in the Snog discography. There’s nothing wrong with composing ‘soft’ music, but it all feels a bit like the best of Snog is a way behind… and yet, the great “Spätzle Machine” sounds contradictory!
Conclusion: Snog remains a very unique project when it comes to global approach and sound production, but even if this work might be a very personal composition, I’m not totally convinced!
Best songs: “Spätzle Machine”, “Death Is Only A Dream”, “Saving Seeds”, “Tear It All Down (With A Song)”.
Rate: (7).
Artist: www.facebook.com/snogofficial
Label: www.metropolis-records.com / www.facebook.com/MetropolisRecords Read the news on ‘Lullabies For The Lithium Age’.
About Snog
Snog is the industrial project of Australian musician David Thrussell, formed in Melbourne in 1988 with Julia Bourke and Tim McGrath. The trio signed to the German label Machinery Records and scored a left-field dancefloor hit with “Corporate Slave” in 1992, the same year as the albums “Lies Inc.” and “Shop”. Thrussell became Snog’s sole driving force over releases including “Cliche” (1994), “The Future” (1995), “The Human Germ” (1998) and “Beyond The Valley Of The Proles” (2003).
Snog continued through “The Last Days Of Rome” (2007) and further studio work before “Lullabies For The Lithium Age” arrived in 2020. Snog later returned with the album “Eight Offerings For The Undead” (2022) and the “Jaded” EP (2023), both on Metropolis Records.
Support Side-Line
More people read Side-Line than ever, and there is still no paywall and no advertising. Readers pay for it instead - from $5 a month.
Why we ask
Advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news organisations we have not put up a paywall, and we refuse to add annoying advertising, so we need to ask for your help. Side-Line’s independent journalism takes time, money and hard work to produce, and we do it to push the artists we like, who are equally fighting to survive.
Handled by PayPal.
I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.
