January 21, 2011 – Snowden @ Mercury Lounge, NY
Snowden came to New York’s Mercury Lounge on Friday (1/21/11). The last time we saw Snowden was in 2008 at the Forecastle festival, when I expressed my overwhelming love for the band (LINK). Since that time, a lot has changed for the band. The enigmatic Corrine as well as David have parted ways, leaving Jordan and Chandler to be joined by two new members. The change appears to have been very recent, as Jordan told the crowd that the new members had only one day to rehearse all of the songs. The tour is promoting the recent release of “Slow Soft Syrup”, the new free EP from Snowden, that operates as a bit of a teaser for the forthcoming full length release…their first since 2007’s “Fuel of the Celebration”. When you’re a band that hits the road as hard as Snowden has for the last several years, I would imagine it’s hard to find the time to write.
I’m glad they found the time. Syrup appears to be a good indicator of the new direction of the band as the album seemed to align with the slightly varied style of the live performance. The songs have a definite, deepened complexity, and it results is a less hookcentric, anthematic sound. In one portion of my review from 2008, I wrote “Virtually every song is an dance anthem….and when Black Eyes starts out….in my eyes, it’s impossible to not start moving.” The scene slower and darker now, although new songs like “Lemon Peel” still show that the guys know how to make the crowd dance from time to time.
So transitions like this can go either way for a band, but for a band that has spent playing club bangers like “Black Eyes”, they’ve made the transition amazingly well, and Syrup’s “No One in Control” is perhaps the perfect example. Jordan Jeffares’s songwriting skills really get put to the test, yet he passes effortlessly.
-Cory Greenwell
Grab a track from the new album below:
MP3 download: Snowden – “Don’t Really Know Me”