Catharsis - Dirty Snake Mouth

Snags

Drawing a veil over yesterday's promo kerfuffle, other than to hope that all involved have had a good sleep and a nice breakfast, and taken their meds, the fact still remains that three denizens of these fine virtual halls have Done A Thing.

@poopot, @bezzer and @IMC1980 have knocked this together without ever actually meeting, let alone being in the same room, but you wouldn't know.

Slightly dark, slightly bombastic, in the 80s it would have been metal, now it's just rock. Not sure it quite makes concept album, but there's certainly some thematic consistency in the different tracks, and musically it makes a coherent whole. And has songs that are actually about things, which pleases me at least.

Music's such a broad church these days I don't really know which bands to offer up as comparators. I like it, genuinely, and I grew up on early AC/DC, Led Zep, Hawkwind, Motorhead, Magnum, early Iron Maiden, Georgia Satellites, 80s charts and pop rock, the tail end of punk, Sisters of Mercy, GnR, and it sounds nothing like any of those, so that's not much help (well, maybe some of it has mild hints of GnR at times). However, given it's available to stream for nix on Spotify, Apple Music, or to buy from Bandcamp (digital and/or CD options) you can easily go make your own mind up and only lose the time it takes to listen.

There are periodic moans about this forum, and periodic rose-tinted hagiographies of it too. But if nothing else, there's a tangible musical outcome from three people 'meeting' here and getting to know each other, largely through the various challenges in the generally tumbleweed "Making Music" section (as far as I can tell - I haven't actually asked). So congratulations chaps, you've Done A Thing, and it's a Thing to be proud of.

--

Disclaimer/full disclosure: for reasons best known to himself, Stu has thrown the tracks at me for feedback during the mix process, and as he keeps pointing out, I am "on it", although only with three spoken-word sentences buried in one of the songs. However, it's very much nothing to do with me, and I don't have a vested interest in the album's success or failure, beyond genuinely liking it myself, torturing Mrs Snags with it, and the pleasure in seeing a mate get a fair crack at the whip. If you think it's shit, that's your prerogative and will make no difference to me either way.

Bezzer

Thanks @Snags that's such a nice post and really appreciated!  I was going to post something later but you have saved me the effort and in a much more eloquent way than I ever manage!

You're absolutely right, we've never met at all.  This came about purely from the Making Music section and it's mad to think so really.  Certainly the speed things came together while working entirely remotely has been amazing.  Big props to @poopot for the creative sparks and to @IMC1980 for some incredible lyrics and vocal delivery.  I'm honestly rather proud of this.

If you don't have Apple Music or Spotify it is also up on Amazon Music and YouTube Music ... there's all the links you need on dirtysnakemouth.com

Also, if you go the bandcamp route, firstly you're one of the good people, secondly there's some bonus stuff there.  There's a digital booklet, a copy of the Devil Smiles video and an acoustic / orchestral arrangement of Reach Out where we've managed to nearly entirely remove Stu! 

I hope you like it!  If you don't ... just turn the volume down but leave it playing so we can grab that sweet, sweet 0.003p per track!

mrkb

Sounds interesting- Will check it out on Spotify- we’ll done to all involved!

tone1

How have I missed this!? I’ll check it out later fo sho….

IMC1980

Thanks for the write up @Snags! Working with @poopot & @Bezzer has been very easy - they have done the hard work of creating the music and in Stu's case mixing songs that contain up to 70 tracks - I have been given blank musical canvasses to capture my ramblings on.

Up until this point like many on the forum, I have been self producing my music which meant that my output was much less frequent (I don't like editing or mixing). There was certainly no way I would have attempted a 15 track album! Having other people working on it and in my opinion doing the heavy lifting has meant the prospect of an album was much less daunting as I could focus on getting the vocals as good as they could be.

I am very proud of all of it and of my bandmates for getting to this point, what a way to end the year!

 Give it a listen and see what you think.

LastMantra

Well done chaps, very impressive. 

poopot

LastMantra said:

Well done chaps, very impressive. 

Thanks dude…

this all started back in June? July? @IMC1980 asked me to record a solo on a track he was releasing 

https://music.apple.com/gb/album/move-the-needle-feat-stuart-saunders-single/1577841836 

I already had a couple of tracks with the music and melody written but no decent lyrics… so asking him to return a favour, I sent them over and The Devil Smiles and Shape of the world were born… 

they were released as singles within weeks of each other… we followed that up with The flame and Mirror bleeds…

same process, I wrote and recorded the music, worked out the form and sent them over to Iain for the singing parts… however, with these two I slung the over to @Bezzer and asked if he fancied adding a few keyboard bits (after establishing he had a keyboard that is) turns out he is a one man orchestra!… so now we had 4 tracks… all released as singles in the space of two months… 

off the back of that I just started banging out track after track and sending them round… suddenly we had 10 tracks… we didn’t feel that was enough for an album so track 11 was quickly written… whilst we’re at it why not do track 12? May as well go to track 14 in that case… but that’s not a nice number how about this one making it 15?

tbh I shocked myself at the rate I churned the tracks out… “The final show” (track15) was written, recorded and the final arrangement done whilst I was on hold on the phone to HMRC!!!!

so now we have 15 tracks finished, mixed and mastered and set for release…

then I get a WhatsApp…

”an acoustic version of Reach Out would be cool as a bonus”

so that was recorded a couple of days before Christmas and finished the day day after Boxing Day… that’s a bonus track for those that download from bandcamp… it’s a cracker… even the mrs likes that one…

oh yeah… we are already up to track 3 for the next one

for some reason the three of us just work… there’s no egos, there’s been no arguing or disagreements… it’s just worked…

now, here the kick in the pants… it’s not even a genre of music I listen to!… my iTunes is full to the brim with soul, funk and Motown…

but… I am massively proud of what we have done and in such a short space of time…

have a listen, you’ll either like it or you won’t… both outlooks are fine!…

Spread the word if you like it… and have a cracking new year!…

peace out x x x 

DefaultM

@Roland understand all the different gear promo threads were seen as excessive, but do you not think you could have combined them in to 1 thread and used it to promote the forum as well as the album?

Putting them all in to parody is incredibly disrespectful, and the ball has been dropped here not using it to say "look what our members have done without ever meeting in person". 

poopot

DefaultM said:

@Roland understand all the different gear promo threads were seen as excessive, but do you not think you could have combined them in to 1 thread and used it to promote the forum as well as the album?

Putting them all in to parody is incredibly disrespectful, and the ball has been dropped here not using it to say "look what our members have done without ever meeting in person". 

To be fair and also to back up the respected modmin team and indeed Roland…

that one was on me…

I had been posting a promo thread every day in “guitar” for the last week… I little countdown if you like… on the last day (yesterday) without any warning they were moved into “plug my stuff”…

now admittedly they should have been in there in the first place. however, as they had been left alone for a week I spat my dummy at the reclassification… not my finest hour I agree, but a combination of eyeball injection, immense pain, bad mood and seeing our project buried amongst the tumbleweeds got my back up a little…

hence the gear posts in the various sub forums!…

childish? Without a doubt!… and I have no excuse really… I wholeheartedly apologise for creating multiple threads about music on a music forum


And I have of course respected the request made of me not to start a thread about the new album today!…

fretmeister

I had no idea @Bezzer was involved in this.

Purchased on iTunes. I’ll have a listen later on. 

Bezzer

@fretmeister ah cheers man!  Much appreciated.  Yeah I'm keys and orchestral on this one ... was fun to stretch myself!

JerkMoans

Sound work: congrats lads.  Have had a brief dabble on Spotify, and once the women of my tribe permit me a minute's peace I shall have a proper listen.

First impression: very impressed

poopot

JerkMoans said:

Sound work: congrats lads.  Have had a brief dabble on Spotify, and once the women of my tribe permit me a minute's peace I shall have a proper listen.

First impression: very impressed

Cheers fella…

just to say, if you buy from bandcamp there’s extra stuff!… and you get your choice of file types

fretmeister

Bezzer said:

@fretmeister ah cheers man!  Much appreciated.  Yeah I'm keys and orchestral on this one ... was fun to stretch myself!

@Bezzer even more looking forward to listening now.

I’m just starting to look into orchestral plugins and keyboard controllers myself.

Bezzer

fretmeister said:

@Bezzer even more looking forward to listening now.

I’m just starting to look into orchestral plugins and keyboard controllers myself.

Be careful mate ... it's almost more of a money sink that pedals! Ha ha

monquixote

Congratulations chaps.

Quite an achievement.

It's a lovely feeling when you find people to collaborate with.

Bidley

Nice - I liked that. It's got a nice post-grunge feel to it, very 90s. Keep it up!

camf

Just listening to the whole album... impressive stuff in every department. Well done!

Mattharrier

I have no horse in this race, other than Poops has answered a number of my questions and been generally nice to me, but I recommend giving this a listen. Very high standard throughout, it's hard to believe ths has been done without seeing the inside of a studio.

It's It's big thumbs up from me. Well done, chaps!

professorben

How heavy were the guitars used on this recording? 

Specifically. 

poopot

professorben said:

How heavy were the guitars used on this recording? 

Specifically. 

Couldn’t tell you… no idea…