Album Review: Youthanise

Christchurch’s The Snake Behaviour have been slithering around the local scene long enough to make them well-recognized live veterans. Influenced in equal measures by heavy rock, metal, and punk, TSB have been plugging away tirelessly doing the self-funded thing, and by all accounts having a whale of a time along the way. Youthanise is their second full-length release, Serpent Psychology having been released in 2019. The idea behind Youthanise was to attempt to capture the energy of their live performances, and as such “there’s very little editing, effects, and hardly any tracking” in their efforts to capture that raw sound.

Get In Line is the first track, romping out of the gate with a fat, chunky riff. Lyrically a fairly sombre affair, with a suitably pounding beat to ram the message home. The punky and frantic Project Failure leaps out at you next, like a kick in the kneecap. Pseudo Sacrifice has a more funk-edged groove, and we learn the deep truth that front man Chris prefers his eggs fried, NOT boiled, in the pop-punk-catchy chorus. The filthiest of low-down filthy bass fuzz tones lurches out of the speakers as an intro for stomp-rocker Shades of Doubt, suitably sludgy riffage ensues, with vocals that are almost accusingly mocking.

The Left Behind (Static Motion) is an angry rebellious yell of a song, a punk/metal banger with a big chorus. Sleeping In Cyanide continues the angry punk/metal stylings, although in an overall much darker vein this time, rich in morbid metaphor. By contrast, World Goes Down has an almost lazy-sounding, stoner-rock vibe, a swampy fuzzed-out rifforama best enjoyed at high volumes, methinks. One of my favourite riffs of the album starts Your Own Enemy, this high-octane stonker rolls along at a right old clip, lending me to surmise that it would be a right belter, played live.

Take A Stand, though, has the best intro riff overall. A rollicking rip-snorter of a song that will have your boogie-shoes working overtime. Metal, Rock, and Punk might be the order of the day, but Grunge pokes its cheeky nose in with Up In Smoke, a good solid rocker of a song. Pop-punk is a big influence on You Who Lies, which also has the best vocal bridge of the album, and great lyrics too. Spectres has a semi-90’s sound to begin with but spends some time going on a rather haunted-sounding journey in the middle, the overall effect being a rather fittingly heavy end to the album.

It is most definitely a wonderfully raw sound that has been captured, and it makes me think it’s high time I saw them play live. Give these lowdown dirty snakes a listen and see what you reckon.