Album Review: Do Nothing - 'Snake Sideways'
The Nottingham boys try to move the needle with their post-punk presence debut, SNAKE SIDEWAYS - and has resulted in some of the band's most melodic songs yet.
For a band who started making music in basements as teenagers in Nottingham, the quirky off-piste sway of post-punk has always been a temptation. And for a band like Do Nothing, such an album jam-packed with these ideals of any sorts has been a long time coming. Ever since Handshakes was eyed up by those post-punk perusers in 2018, it was a sure-sign that the group could *ahem* seal the deal.
A pair of EPs, 2020's Zero Dollar Bill - featuring the electric New Life - and following years' Glueland cemented Do Nothings' ever growing prospect of being associated underneath the post-punk banner as a new British band bursting with the new strange. Of course, for a band to stay ever-present in the now, it's always important to evolve your sound. Frontman Chris Bailey was the first to notice and had big ambitions for the bands' first proper studio album. What came out of those seemingly never-ending writing sessions was Do Nothing at their most experimental - and most refined - to date.
At the heart of it, it's an anxious knee-jerk of an album, truly exposing the bands' most vulnerable moments so far - writing an album and the fear of failing from it. It doesn't fall too far from the Do Nothing tree though, with Bailey's velvety voice hitting home with deadpan egg-on-toast lyrics and frenetic energy that has stayed ever-present throughout. It's an album cooked on precariousness, as it teeters on jagged gasps, tetchy bass grooves and snappy electrics close to a short-circuit any minute. It's never easy to chisel yourself away in the hopes of creating a subliminal debut album that will turn heads. It became such a task that they began to wrestle with the idea that the band would ultimately split as a result. An apparent disaster that will no doubt shake the very foundations of Nottingham's growing post-punk scene.
You feel this almost immediately in giddy opener Nerve, with Bailey starting as his inner voice, "they're gonna fire you in the morning, if you don't get right" before he starts to reason with himself with a C'est La Vie crooning of, these kinds of things, they happen all the time; a celebration of everyday realities that seemingly everyone else goes through - a convention Bailey repeatedly falls back on. It's even present in Happy Feet, an unnerving effort earmarked with glitchy guitars as Bailey comes in again with, "Tonight, I'll put plastic in my teeth/ So I can't grind my teeth, and then I fall asleep." The self-titled Snake Sideways is a fuzzy dream-state on being "blank on both sides", a gentle giant that you would often hear on Tom Waits' swampy Rain Dogs - an apparent influence the band directly slice from. it's an album that rarely projects anything it's not. One of the strongest on the album, Hollywood Learn is spatially aware of its surroundings; a swampy ballad with embellished piano trills, woozy bass and synth lullabies as Bailey forewarns, "we'll make you eat every red cent that you make, you'll be up the creek too.." A pre-released single Ameoba can stand on its own for good reason. An anxious bump of all just waiting round, "for you to wake us up and let us down," while Moving Target is very much a bemusing remark to a conformity of this reality we see ourselves in, where "some people dress up and go and find the future / Others just drool over the past." Both tracks here throw experiments to the wall and embrace Do Nothing into the world of alternative music championed by all.
The fact that Do Nothing have made an album that exists, is a triumph in itself, as this inability to create splurged out through half-spoken vocals and pent-up rhythmics. Coming out of the other side of writer's block is a pivotal moment for Nottingham's post-punk poster boys here. Their topsy-turvy journey of unpredictability is finally here for our pleasure in an all-spoils, all-surprises stunner of a debut album. If you're lucky enough to be in the East Midlands, you can catch them during their Album Listening Party at their stomping ground, Bodega this Friday (30th) or catch them at a hometown gig in Rock City on the 30th September. You can grab tickets for either here.
Words by Alex Curle
