Indie music followers have been gifted an surprising Halloween deal with this 12 months. At midnight on All Hallows’ Eve, a shock album by the brand new indie rock supergroup Snocaps dropped on streaming platforms.
Snocaps’ members — Waxahatchee mastermind Katie Crutchfield, her sister and former P.S. Eliot bandmate Allison, Asheville, North Carolina rock phenom MJ Lenderman and producer Brad Cook — had cryptically posted Polaroid photographs collectively earlier within the month, resulting in hypothesis of a possible collaboration, however a full album was a welcome shock.
Snocaps’ self-titled document runs simply over half an hour throughout 13 transient songs. Fans of Waxahatchee and Lenderman’s signature Americana sounds could also be dissatisfied, as there’s little in the best way of twangy vocals or keening metal guitars in Snocaps’ providing.
It’s additionally very a lot not an MJ Lenderman-forward challenge. His contributions are fully instrumental, encompassing guitar on all tracks and drums and bass on a choose few. This is primarily a Crutchfield sisters album, conceived in the course of the recording of Waxahatchee’s “Tigers Blood” and recorded in per week.
Each sister takes on lead vocal duties for about half of the album’s songs. Their voices naturally have a familial resemblance, however are additionally distinct sufficient that their songs have distinct character and their vocal harmonies are wealthy.
Sonically, “Snocaps” is a effective synthesis of very 2010s-feeling indie rock, like the sort the Crutchfields made as P.S. Eliot, with the more moderen Southern indie resurgence spearheaded by Waxahatchee, Lenderman and Wednesday, of which Lenderman is a recording member.
The album, as with all MJ Lenderman releases, has a connection, nonetheless slight, to Clemson. Lenderman performed at numerous Clemson home venues in the course of the lead-up to and tour for his 2019 debut album, and Wednesday carried out on the South Carolina Botanical Gardens in 2022, shortly earlier than their album “Rat Saw God” grew to become one of the acclaimed indie-rock releases of the 2020s.
While these exhibits have been earlier than my time at Clemson, I can’t assist however really feel some stage of native delight after I see how far Lenderman has come since taking part in in a friend-of-a-friend’s lounge.
While probabilities to see Lenderman in residing rooms are few and much between as of late, Snocaps has promised a tour in help of this album, which can begin someday subsequent 12 months. The album may also be launched on bodily codecs subsequent 12 months, with LPs and CDs obtainable for preorder, anticipated to ship in April.