The Snuts – Burn The Empire album review: A punch in the Facebook | Music | Entertainment
Then Burn The Empire explodes into energetic life as singer Jack Cochrane rages against the puppeteers who pull our strings. The nagging verse builds to a neatly addictive chorus and a psychotically swirling middle eight.
Cochrane has a dig at Boris – well, it would be rude not to. But the empire they are targeting belongs to “ruthless and unethical” global corporations.
Social media giants Facebook and Amazon cop it on the edgy Zuckerpunch, with Jack swiping at sweatshop labour and screen fatigue.
The song employs a broken beat reminiscent of pre-internet music – the “eighttrack golden age” of sampling when “that phone in your pocket only had a few games”.
The neat wah-wah guitar break rides the wave of nostalgia, as do lyrics referencing old C&C Music Factory hit Things That Make You Go Hmmmm.
Indie ballad 13, which is about being young and poor, “sipping from the bottle of life… choking on the throttle of life”, changes the mood.
The Snuts, a working-class band from West Lothian, are singing about the world that made them.
Knuckles, a tribute to strong women, is feel-good indie pop. The Rodeo is softer, an addictive foot-tapper that hooks instantly.
End Of The Road, about a failing relationship, is more unexpected – a sumptuous duet with Croydon’s own Rachel Chinouriri whose soothing vocals add surprising delicacy.
There is another acoustic ballad, some funk and electrorock, but the Scots work best on propulsive numbers such as Pigeons In New York.
“Why don’t we let the past go?” sings Jack. Although, as this album reminds us, sometimes the past can be the future.
