Snake Wine hails from Hammond, Indiana. They don't come from the seedy underbelly of London, the trashy back alleys of New York City, or beneath the dark, wet skies of Seattle—places once stalked by the likes of Johnny Thunders, Keith Richards, and Jimi Hendrix. Instead, they come from the hometown of Jean Shepherd, the author who gave us A Christmas Story. Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Hell, I love A Christmas Story, and I’ll have strong words—perhaps even fisticuffs—for anyone who says otherwise. But the raw sounds cutting through Snake Wine's new self-titled LP would make you swear they crawled out of one of those other, more obvious rock n' roll towns, rather than the city that brought us Ralphie and his Red Ryder BB gun.
This new record, debut LP I should add, oozes with top shelf rock n' roll sleaze and swagger. It’s served up with a heaping helping of Rolling Stones and a dash of psychedelic spice just to give everything a nice kick in the teeth. It makes you wonder: what if Jimi Hendrix had played on
Sticky Fingers? What if Arthur Lee had joined the Faces on
A Nod's As Good As a Wink...? Or what if Anton Newcombe had teamed up with The Oblivions at any point? Maybe those collaborations actually happened in some alternate dimension or parallel universe, but we'll never know. Snake Wine, however are here in this world with us, offering a glimpse at what could have been, delivering loud, catchy riffs and dirty, psychedelic fuzz with absolute style and flair.
The record kicks off with the song "I Need A Hook," which bursts in with the energy of a drunken bar brawl—mean, loud, and barely in control. Further down the tracklist, "One Free Lick" and "10gal Tanker" are manic rock 'n' roll lightning rods, calling down thunder straight from the finger tips of gods. The album closes perfectly with "6 Foot Down," a track that—alongside "Bad Son" and "Black Eyes Rock"—offers a folksy, bluesy groove rubbed with some psych reverb. It’s fun to listen to a record with this kind of sonic range and dynamic; you never get the same song twice, yet every moment is 100% Snake Wine. The band never tries on different masks or dips their toes into waters where they know damn well they don't belong. While some might push for expansion and reinvention, there's a lot to be said for blooming where you're planted. And right now, Snake Wine is absolutely thriving in that rich Indiana soil.
Follow Snake Wine here:
