RAZORCAKE

Angry, angular metal with lots of speed, precision and complicated time changes. The first couple songs remind me of Poland’s Antigama, brutal, fast, and thrashing about. Things slow down a bit for “Mom and Me at the Zoo,” but it’s no less punishing than the faster numbers. Sounds like Helmet and Satan might be influences. I’m only halfway through the disc and already I’m exhausted. Aspiring serial killers, you’ve found your soundtrack. –Josh Benke

LOWCUT #38

The follow up to their debut from 2005 (I Liked You Better When You Were A Corpse, Empty Records) is an eclectic experience. The songs are made up of more parts than the number of tits on a sow and they vary in tone between angry, sad, sensitive, brutal and other unambiguous emotions, but somehow they still manage to come across as wholesome as scrap metal. Did I say eclectic? Hey, don't worry. It's not like they're trying to beat Dillinger Escape Plan playing silly symphonic metal with glass shattering vocals. They do play with the punk/hardcore/metal crossover yo- yo, but SGS go for your teeth, not your glasses. Aggressive music with lots of nasty hooks, melodic qualities and punk rock bottom end and a charming American type of "we're so fucked up" fucked up vibe to it (they are from America, in case I forgot to mention that). The lyrics are worth your attention, as well. A cerebral cast. The contrast thing works. Congratulations. Another thing that makes this disc shine is the Conrad Uno production. Seattle's Egg Studios have laid a few rotten ones here and there over the years, but here the albumen really suits the material. The instruments are quite piercing and the clear separation gives the album a clinical surgeryesque finish, which suits SGS. They could have recorded it more abrasively and I'm not saying that wouldn't have worked, but there is a subtle point to how the abusive music sounds so clean at the same time. One scary chicken. Anyway, this is a CD and it is too bad their albums are only available digitally. Thanks Empty Records! Now, put this stuff out on a record, please.
 

OX-FANZINE / Ausgabe #66

"I Liked You Better When You Were A Corpse" - wer eine Platte so betitelt, der ist mein Freund. Und wer Longplayer Nr. 2 dann "Even A Butchered Carcass Can Shine" nennt, der bleibt das auch und hat obendrein wohl gewaltig einen an der Murmel, und diesen Eindruck bestätigen nicht nur so hübsche Songnamen wie "Follow the bleeder", "Northwest festival of drowned children" oder "Aurora über alles", auch die Musik des Trios aus Seattle. Ich mag einfach Menschen mit einem eigenwilligen Sinn für Humor, die nicht plumpe Klischees strapazieren wie irgendwelche ganzkörpertapezierten Metalcore-Nullnummern oder mehr Wert auf sauber gezogene Kajallinien legen als auf unter die Gürtellinie zielende Gitarrenriffs. Basser Blatz brüllt sich gerne heiser, aber hat auch ein paar eher melodiöse Gesangslinien drauf, Drummer Spooky hackt psychotisch und gehetzt auf seine Trommeln ein, und Gitarrist Roddy sorgt für skalpellscharfe Riffs, was mich im Endergebnis an eine Mischung aus BLACK FLAG, MELVINS, FLESHIES und GOD BULLIES denken lässt. Dabei haben SNITCHES GET STITCHES auch ein Faible für atmosphärische Nummern ("Minulla on Täitä"), sind wohl ziemliche Weirdos und stehen mindestens mit dem Teufel im Bunde, so höllisch gut ist ihr kein Gefangene machender Extrem-Punk. Ich denke, Menschen mit gutem Geschmack haben mich längst verstanden ...  (9) --JOACHIM HILER

THE STRANGER

LEFT OF THE DIAL

This mayhem musique with the velocity of a crashing black inferno jetliner reminds me of the best parts of Bastro, Hammerhead, and Blood Brothers, where the open-throttle, spit and gunk anguish never quite overshadow the demented art, thankfully, and there’s always a hint of rare flash-body searing beauty in the pummeling noise. “Edible Reward for Dry Pants” bum rushes forward with the fearless, trammeling tempo of unhinged hardcore, but there’s no macho fascist body pretense, and the underbelly is all post-modern “language as weaponry” legionnaires. Their centrifugal core principle seems clear: the band wants the songs to feel both limber and disembodied and ground zero for an intercourse with outer edges of pain and entrapment. There is a sheath of unfiltered noise, and the time changes are intense factors, like on “Mom and Me at the Zoo,” but the songs all feel like they are trying to tear down garrisons of bourgeois life with for being too circumcised by their own agendas. That means that although prickling 1982 speed is the hard, aggressive conqueror on songs like “Follow the Leader,” they still have room for inventive gestures that make the frontal assault more than a tense joke about how lame and repugnant softly loaded modern music is. I feel like I am at their mercy, that their songs are the ire country, and I am traveling in a bubble of pure chromium oxide that they are trying to tear down from all around my limbs, with different strategies. If you want the physical loyalty of hardcore, the writhing height and groan that alleviate all the bad wow and flutter of your mediocre “real world” life, then this is your signal tower. Your ambivalence is their ambivalence. But make no mistake: this won’t deliver NYC or hoodie rock or even art-rawk retread. This is like ejaculating enormous amounts of ancient Chinese texts about war, illness, and poetry, wrapped in the evil eye lyrics that seem more death throe Sweden than Seattle sound. It’s all contradictions, blood and brain, musculature and mesmerizing snake pits.

REDEFINE

In recent decades the genre of punk rock has almost become synonymous with conformity. Most bands who affiliate themselves with the tag do little more than recycle the same chords and melodies ad nauseum. So it’s definitely refreshing when a band like Snitches Get Stitches comes along and reinvigorates the template with some new ideas.

Their latest “Even a Butchered Carcass Can Shine” (out now on Empty records) is a pummeling tour de force, exploring the dark side of the human psyche with its tongue planted firmly in cheek.

What truly separates their sound from the pack is their insistence on cultivating innovation rather than relishing in the nostalgia of yesteryear. Combining disparate elements of hardcore, math rock, pop punk, and even ambient techno; they play the kind of anomalous tunes that compel the listener to scratch their head while uncontrollably nodding it in rhythm.[...] --JOHN GILLANDERS

SUBURBAN VOICE

This takes me back--to the early 90s when there was such a thing as aggro indy rock. It didn't have to mean softness or tenderness. Punk and hardcore were an influence and the energy level was there but then the bands would work in some darker tendencies. A psychotic element, lashing out with intensity. Snitches Get Stitches, a three-piece from Seattle, are that kind of band. Back then, they would have been on a label like Amphetamine Reptile. Howling and ripping, yet in a different manner, along with touches of melody--"Let It Stack" is a good example. Raging on the verses, more melodic on the chorus. I'm not quite sure how Tim Duncan ends up being lumped with a cobra and a shark ("Tim Duncan, Cobra, Shark") but it sounds good musically, at least. There's a lot of music I listened to during that time period that makes me cringe now. These guys make me remember that hard-hitting music can be made without strictly being hardcore, punk or metal.

ロリポブログ!

シアトルのニュー・パンク・バンドのデビュ－作。レコーディングはDevil DogsやFastbacksの名作を生んだ Egg Studio で、エンジニアも Conrad Uno が担当している。なんか凄く懐かしい感じだが、このバンドの音はちゃんと2006年仕様。シアトル伝統のヘビーウェイトなパンクを30%スピード・アツプした感じの疾走感たっぷりのプレイが特徴です。全開の1) Edible reward for day pantsもいかしていますが、発狂したスクリーミング・ナンバー3) Mom and me at the zooはベストな一曲でしょう。Dwarves, Reatards等のファンもぜひどうぞ。

FLIGHT 13

Schwerer LA Mathrock trifft auf New York Artrock und Latino-Punk aus Miami, eine alptraumhafte Mischung aus progressivem Hardcore, wildem Punkrock und Minderheiten-Sprachrohr-Dasein, frei nach dem Motto "Dance tonight revolution tomorrow". Musikalisch irgendwo zwischen Born Against, Dillinger Four und Sawhorse mit mehr roher Energie und ordentlichen Punkrock-Einschlag, unheimlich energetisch und live sicherlich eine wahre Wucht.

RAZORCAKE #25 [hard copy 'zine only]

This is the kind of album that makes me conflicted. As a fan of music, I'm stoked to hear Snitches Get Stitches because they play a sneaky kind of punk rock. I listened to the first song and kinda shrugged my shoulders, but it was enough to keep listening. So I did and by halfway through the third song "I've Got A Thing For Violets," I was hooked. Something about it was so fresh and original that the disc went straight into my high rotation. I started listening to this album every day. That's good stuff. So why should I be conflicted? Well, because I have to review it, and what the fuck do I say about it? It starts off with a blast of hardcore, something in the vein of Negative Approach. Kinda tough. A few hooks in there. Before too long, though, the music starts to branch out. It drifts into territory where I can hear a Proletariat-style disjointedness, but the songs are strangely catchy. And there's an explosive fearlessness that makes me think of Big Black, but there's not much electronic going on here. Weird, self-indulgent samples between the songs, but I don't mind because the samples are short and the songs they're between are good. It's arty, but in a good way. It's a far cry from anything I've heard on Empty but Empty has always been pretty good at keeping me on my toes. And so on. You can see the conflict. I guess I'll try to simplify it: I like it. It's different. I listen to over a hundred new bands a year. Most of them sound remarkably similar. This album is a bit of an oddball. I've reviewed about three or four hundred records; I'm rarely stumped. And here's a band that can stump me and get me excited. That's so cool. --SEAN

THE STRANGER

Hell hath no fury like a musician scorned, and local progressive hardcore trio Snitches Get Stitches strike with such torrid irons you'd think they were retaliating for an exceptionally scalding attack. At the core of SGS's Empty Records debut is the dervish delivery of one Roddy Chops, who reels off the rails into a blistering howl one moment and coils his disdain into a red-hot sneer the next. The fact that he's not always in demon-child mode adds to the band's multifaceted sound--but he nonetheless spits out his words like bloodied, broken teeth. Lyrically, Chops trails off from the acrimonious to the absurd, with the threat of violence omnipresent throughout. Whether he's offering a bayonet to the neck or snuffing out cigarettes on skin, Chops takes plastic culture down at every turn, salting every wound he opens with ample sarcasm. Musically, SGS puncture the various skins housing the giant rock genre--everything from math to electro-noise to damaged indie gets a bruising from the Stitches, as overpowering melodies get squashed by noisy punk interludes, only to rise from the ashes and lead out a song. --JENNIFER MAERZ

SF WEEKLY

SGS LIVE

the seattle times

Snitches Get Stitches, one of Seattle's loudest rock bands, plays from its second album, "Even a Butchered Carcass Can Shine," at all-ages venue SS Marie Antoinette at 8 tonight[...]If you're going to the SS to hear this hardcore trio, bring earplugs. Your brain will thank you.

the seattle weekly

Snitches Get Stitches are very loud. Fusing abrasive metal riffage with relatively benign pop, then sealing the seams with driving rhythms only to burst them back open with odd, electro-core samples, their recent Empty Records debut is not for the faint of heart. Neither is their live show.

the stranger

There's an argument going on in Snitches Get Stitches' snarling punk lyrics, and it's not about who's the rat in the bunch. It goes on within the songs, between various vocalists delivering their lines with disgust in a throaty montage of aggression. But then, just when the fight seems to be over, one singer takes center stage and lays down the crux of his contentions all over again, starting up the squall with a fisticuffs call-and-response and a backing dust cloud of noise. The band channels a Drive Like Jehu-like thirst for adrenaline through a hardcore punk delivery, creating an interesting dynamic that I imagine sounds equally terrifying and entertaining live.
--JENNIFER MAERZ

the seattle weekly

Nominated "Best New Artist", the 2nd Annual Seattle Weekly Music Awards.

tablet

three imaginary girls

They ranked approximately 6.7 ouchie decibels above acceptable imaginary Monday night punk-rock-noise-debauchery level. They blistered so hot, I can't believe the freshly primed and painted Graceland walls didn't dissolve into a sticky smoldering pile of red and black goo.

the seattle times

SGS gets loud at the Sunset Tavern on Thursday (9 p.m., $5).
--TOM SCANLON

tablet

Snitches Get Stiches [sic] is not only a great name, but it's a newer Seattle band that, in a few months has already managed to put out a six-song demo CD and begun to play live. I was really digging on the first noise-rock song "Release the Kraken," but almost wondered if it was a different band when a pop tune kicked in next after some cool phone samples. I definitely like their heavy stuff and hope they develop in that direction.
--DAN HALLIGAN