Snapcase - Bright Flashes

Snapcase
Bright Flashes
Victory Records
Grade: A-

The boys from Buffalo have been on the cutting edge of hardcore essentially since their first release on Victory in 1991. Since that time, Snapcase have offered consistently unique and challenging song compositions through the course of their recordings. Their 1997 release Progression Through Unlearning absolutely rocked the hard music world and made people recognize that Snapcase were something special. The follow up to Progression, Designs for Automotion (2000) didn't live up to the former, though last year's End Transmission restored faith in the faithful. End Transmission was more of a conceptual album with a strong reliance on electronics and haunting compositions - but it still rocked hard. This is where Bright Flashes comes in. Flashes is a composite record with five new songs, three remixes of songs off End Transmission and four covers. The five new songs are from the initial End Transmission sessions. Amazingly, Snapcase, a band that has excelled in brevity over the years, came to the studio with nineteen new songs. They decided to only keep thirteen and then release the other six at some point in the future - though one is still missing. Well the future is now and the songs don't disappoint. While you can tell the five come from End Transmission, they also have an element of a Progression sound - particularly "Dress Rehearsal" and "Skeptic." The three remixes are of "Believe/Revolt," "Ten A.M." and "Exile Etiquette," spearheaded by guitarist-extraodinaire Frank Vicario. Vicario's mix of "Ten A.M." is heavily electronic with tons of distortion and made to accentuate Daryl Tabeski's vocals. Bill Snow did the arrangement of "Believe/Revolt" and Ocelot Mthrfckrs (of the Rise) programmed and arranged "Exile Etiquette." Snapcase offers up their version of Helmet's "Blacktop," Devo's "Freedom of Choice" and "Gates of Steel," and Jane's Addiction's "Mountain Song." "Blacktop" is true to form with possibly harder guitars but not as much precision (but who can get more precise than Helmet). "Mountain Song" comes close to original, but I think with Snapcase's ingenuity and talent they could have added something really special if they messed around with the parameters. "Freedom of Choice" and "Gates of Steel" are hot numbers and show how elementary catchy Devo was. Besides from the novelty aspect of the record, the added tracks from the End Transmission sessions are stunners - especially "New Academy." Now if there were only unreleased tracks from the Progression sessions we would be in business.