Review
Snailking
Samsara

Consouling Sounds (2012) Cheryl

Snailking – Samsara cover artwork
Snailking – Samsara — Consouling Sounds, 2012

If you're going to name your band after a record by one of your genres chosen greats, then you better have the musical balls to back it up. And damn, do Snailking back it up. Taking their name from Ufomammut's second album, Snailking tread in their path whilst building their own identity as a massive and heavy prospect in the world of sludged out doom. Samsara courses with intent and beauty whilst also holding on to the knowledge that life is, well, pain, and Sweden's Snailking hit this point with measure and astute observation. "Shelter" rolls with languid pace and a preternatural dusk settles over the sounds like a cloak whilst Pontus Ottosson's voice weaves its way through the stoned melodies the instrumentation behind provides. The hue of prevailing sadness becomes ever more clear as the track progresses and this shadow follows Samsara through to the final notes with a melancholic stain on perception.

Samsara is, evidently, meant to only be a demo, but the three tracks on this release are extraordinarily rendered. There is depth, and warmth and humanity beneath the waves of crunching guitar and soaring vocal shades, and second track "In The Wake" is a commanding and profound performance from a band making the early steps in what should hopefully be a long career. Looping rhythms colour "Samsara" with a fascinating melody and an electronic edge creeps in to give Snailking that little something extra in their soundscape that already gnaws and crackles with an otherworldly and binding energy. 

Samsara revels in increasingly hypnotic notes and each track passes through moments of mesmerising repetition, drawing you in the the darkness below and wrapping itself around the mind, perfectly echoing the base meaning of the title - the cycle of death and rebirth to which we are bound. It's a powerful message and Snailking constantly circle this with patterns of sound that shift and change yet hold that deeper meaning rooted within it's walls. Snailking are to be watched.

8.0 / 10Cheryl • February 19, 2013

Snailking – Samsara cover artwork
Snailking – Samsara — Consouling Sounds, 2012

Related news

Snailking debut

Posted in Records on September 17, 2014

Recently-posted album reviews

Personality Cult

Dilated
Dirtnap (2025)

I had a hard time starting this review. I can’t help coming back to the fact that it sounds like Marked Men. It does, maybe intentionally so, as Dilated is the second of Personality Cult’s albums that is produced by Jeff Burke of Marked Men and Radioactivity. But I don’t necessarily like to say a band sounds like another band … Read more

Various Artists

Her Head's On Fire/Arms Like Roses - Split
Double Helix (2025)

Her Head’s On Fire (NY, NY) and Arms Like Roses (New Haven, CT) team up on this split 7” with two new tracks (one each band) of post-hardcore tunes that are both massive and melodic in their own distinct ways. "Universal" is the track from Her Head’s On Fire. Recorded by the band’s guitarist Jeff Dean, "Universal" came from the … Read more

Dead Bars

All Dead Bars Go To Heaven
Iodine (2025)

Dead Bars has a unique talent of taking the everyday, the experiences you see and live all the time, and shining a new light on them to make them personal and interesting. I've written about it before, yet it's my job to say this again and to make it interesting. It's what Dead Bars does, so it only seems fitting … Read more