Review / Multiple Authors
These Arms Are Snakes
This Is Meant to Hurt You

Nothing sucks more than seeing a band live and loving them, then listening to their recorded material and running into a brick wall. The dissapointment would cause you to do such an irrational action. In short, that 'story' covers what happened to me, verbatim. This record contains many elements that it would require to create a really great band that could put out some pretty show and non-show tunes. The majority of this ep sums up what I would describe as "boring indie rock". There are a few parts that are exceptions, like the instrumental ending to "Run It Through The Dog", which contains many skidding keyboard electrocutions and liquid leaking effects on guitars and other assorted instruments. It would've been pretty interesting if they would've experimented with that effect used on the singer's voice. The times that it is used come off as sounding pretty neato. A band that definitely doesn't deserve all the hype they are receiving, but they are definitely not terrible. Just don't expect anything new and/or interesting.

Apparently These Arms Are Snakes's debut EP was meant to hurt me. I'm not sure what I did to them, or why they're so angry, but I decided to review the record anyways.

After giving the record a spin, I decided I wasn't really hurt, just kind of bored. These Seattle veterans really bring nothing new or impressive to the table. I'm not even really sure why there's any hype surrounding this band at all, honestly. Taking what they need from other hardcore and post-hardcore acts, the Snake-Armed fellows add some spacey guitar effects, monotonous vocals, and failed artistry to the mix, but fail to make songs that truly capture a mood, a feeling, or the listener.

The first two tracks on the record pass by like a slight breeze. So weak and insignificant, that you have to concentrate to even remember that music is still playing. The third track, "Diggers of Ditches Everywhere", starts out at a drudgingly slow pace. The vocals hit their lowest point on this song, dragged out and bland, it actually becomes painful to listen to. Lyrically speaking, the band really doesn't show too well. On the last track, "Drinking from the Necks of the Ones You Love", they seem to borrow from a local neo-Goth coffee house poet with the line, "tell all these stars that these stars are no more".

These Arms Are Snakes are not a bad band. They're talented guys that simply don't really have any good ideas to bring to the table. Maybe in the future we'll see something impressive from these characters, or maybe they'll continue to put out botched efforts.

I had to.

The sticker on the front of this CD's jewel case is going to sell lots of copies of it, I guarantee. It reads "Featuring former members of Botch, Kill Sadie, and Nineironspitfire," and the name of that first band will get people buying in droves. And then, most likely, many of those who buy it will return it because it sounds almost nothing like that first band, but instead has far more in common with the latter two. The people who return this record are fools. These Arms Are Snakes have presented one of the most invigorating EPs to bless my eardrums in years. It's at once interesting, innovative, and extremely enjoyable. The record is full of supremely great moments, starting with the opening track, "Riding the Grape Dragon." It's middle-eastern tinged between-verse guitar lines, along with the haunting intro riff which appears later in the song, fit along perfectly with the frantic vocal styles; the song eventually breaks down into two seperate guitar lines bouncing off each other, then erupts in the last minute. "Run it Through the Dog" hits you from the front with a full band assault and a heavily processed vocal attack that cuts down to a throat-shredding screaming section for the choruses, which eventually cuts down to whispering that parallels that of a madman. Another paranoid, reverb-drenched noise collage exists in "Diggers of Ditches Everywhere," but it's more restrained, a little calmer, as opposed to the building and releasing induced tension from the two previous tracks. "The Blue Rose" kicks in with a high-end groove on the bass and keyboards that rides the song through to the end, along with more middle-eastern guitars and the first trace of mostly discernable vocals popping up in the verses. The band saves the best for last, though, closing with "Drinking From the Necks of The Ones You Love," which is epic in ways that very few standard "epic" songs are; yes, there's a build, but it's in such an atypical way that it becomes even more effective upon climax, with unintelligible vocals being screamed at what seems to be the physical limit of the vocal cords. Even better is the knowledge that a full-length from these guys will be dropped within the year, even if the recordings of the band come nowhere near the greatness of their live show. These Arms Are Snakes are truly a breath of fresh air, in that they're a band that can write, perform, and produce all at an equally great level. And with a pedigree like theirs, that shouldn't be surprising.