No Fold

deep Snapper
Into the Ugly
recorded January 2008 at The Echo Lab with Matt Barnhart
Mastered by David Willingham

Floating through the week on Tuesday's high, I can't help but relate the characteristics of everything I like to those of a certain presumptive Democratic nominee. My family physician, with her lanky hands and calm, listening eyes, gave me an update on her two young children -- one is a boy -- and I thought of the smiling Obama sisters. Choice sandwiches-on-the-run have tasted classic but fresh, hearty with straightforward whole wheat and hopeful, crisp spinach.

Though it'd be less of a stretch to introduce deep Snapper on such terms, I'll spare you. It's no good to assume the members' political leanings, and We Shot JR already called the band's style "sophisticated."

Into the Ugly is the second release proper by a few persistent dudes who use their supple brains to raise fists. I'll admit it up front: I'm partial to jazz-informed cerebral rock; I rolled down the windows and pumped the quotable, blistering sermons of Red Animal War's Black Phantom Crusades as a mode of social evangelism in the gated neighborhoods of my youth.
Deep Snapper's latest is not quite as face-melting as the aforementioned album, but its as thoughtful and more palatable. "Splitting the Differents (Sic)" represents Into the Ugly's overall cleverness. It's catchy, with dissonant punches in just the right spots and a sunny reference to west-coast punk.
Throughout, grown-up rants about "urban sprawl" with "competing dry cleaners across from each other" make this an album of record by musician dad-types turned scene regulars turned band to watch. Mixing courtesy of Tre Orsi's Matthew Barnhart treats deep Snapper as the articulate rhythm section and guitar machine that it is, and an introduction to Dallas jazzman Dave Willingham's work is just another of this record's gifts.
Luckily. dS plays out often. Check here for an old-fashioned Web site calendar; no June Denton dates are up yet. And yeah, don't forget this.