Snocaps: Snocaps

This album feels like the most obvious successor to The Breeders since… well, since The Breeders. Who, frankly, don’t really sound how I recall them sounding when revisiting — or, really, hearing for the first time — their latest album, All Nerve, from 2018. I honestly had no idea they were still making music in the waning days of the 2010s. Shame on me. But, no, their music is way more atonal and shoegazey and rock ‘n’ roll than Snocaps. I suppose I started with them as the basis because of the whole identical-twin-sister dynamic. The Breeders having the Deal sisters, Kim and Kelly, and Snocaps a completely logical collab between Katie Crutchfield from Waxahatchee and her twin, Allison, from Swearin’. Apparently they did start their musical adventure together in 2007 in a band called P.S. Eliot, which broke up in 2011. And this, somehow, is the first time they’ve decided to sister up again and make a record. Bringing in Katie’s good buddy, MJ Lenderman, to add his special flair to the affair. Good call.

Now, whenever you have a collab like this, it seems you have to pick a lane. For lack of a better term. Swearin’, while not necessarioly hardcore or anything, is definitely heavier music than Waxahatchee’s more singer-songwriter, alt-country, indie folk bent. It’s all overdriven guitars, and while it will occasionally have some twang, it’s definitely a band-first indie rock outfit. Their songs are dynamic and catchy and I’ve been a big fan of their sound — even sticking a couple of their albums on my year-end lists back when I used to have time to do such things. Waxahatchee, I was more lukewarm on. Nothing really grabbed me. It’s vague music, to coin a phrase that nobody will ever use. Or not. It’s somewhere between that kind of meandering singer-songwriter thing and adult contemporary and, with a few exceptions, just isn’t my cup of tea. So, of course, Swearin’ go five years between albums (2013’s Surfing Strange and 2018’s Fall Into the Sun) and promptly break up. We can’t have nice things. As far as I know, the Alison half of this twin duo hasn’t done anything since. I mean, I’m sure she’s done stuff because how else would she pay rent, but I don’t think she’s put out any more music until this Snocaps record in 2025. That’s quite the hiatus.

Now, having twin sisters in a band isn’t a new thing. Off the top of my head I can think of Petra and Rachel Hayden (actually two of three Hayden triplets) from that dog. and The Rentals and, uh… Tegan and Sara? Who I think are like a Canadian electronic duo who I definitely thought at one time were a couple or something? There’s Haim, of course, but there’s three of them and they’re not even remotely twins. And Veruca Salt, who aren’t even related, but I may have fantasized sometime in 1994 that they were. Okay, so there’s not that many. But there should be! Because something about the Crutchfield sisters blending their style and their voices is kind of throw-back magic. Now, I’m not a biologist or a whatever you call a scientist who can tell why identical twins might have voices that meld really well together, but I’m going to assume there’s some sort of structural thing or diaphragm shape that they share that gives them similar, but complimentary, timber. Or tone. I’m also not a musicologist. Nor very educated when it comes to music. I just like what I like.

What really draws me to this record is the casual nature of the whole thing. The ease the sisters and Lenderman bring to the music. As if they just got in the studio, jotted down a few notes and went to town creating some really catchy, low-key indie rock tunes. None of that rambling Waxahatchee stuff; it’s pretty concise and pop structured. Which I prefer over the shapeless tunes that can sometimes come out of singer-songwriters. If I wanted tuneless poetry, I’d read a book. To be fair (to myself) I do read books. My sarcasm is sometimes misplaced and I’m sorry for that. Alright, I’ve spent a lot of time talking around the music and I really should get to it because I’m sure I’ve lost the two readers who even come to this site. There is something Matthew Sweet nostalgic about this album that I can’t quite put my finger on, but each tune is an unadorned, Americana pop morsel. It’s not breaking the mold, but pulling in elements of the best of this harmony-filled, sun-soaked, very-early-90s jangly college rock sound that shone before the darkness commenced. It’s not going to light the world on fire, but the bounce and the laidback professionalism of the whole thing makes for a really decent, repeatable listen.