Snuff – Come And Have A Go If You Think You’re Rachmaninoff (SBÄM/10 Past 12) – Snuff really are an underrated band, I mean yes, those who know, really do know but hey, come on, by now that should be regarded as a national treasure, they should be turning down invites to play the King’s Birthday Party. Yes we know they wrote the blueprint when it comes to punk pop, there’s a thousand bigger bands (mostly American) who should be signing over at least half their royalties to Snuff, we all know that, but, as we’ve probably said dozen of times before, there’s far more than just the punk pop blueprint they wrote. Snuff have always dripped soul, they’ve always had that little something the others have never quite been able to touch, it is soul, they are a soul band, they have much heart and soul. So much reality and quite why it has taken then some 37 years to make a fully acoustic album I really don’t know? I guess dedication is the key, at least that’s what Roy told me, the geezer up the road says they should be as loved as The Who, as respected as The Jam, it really isn’t that silly to say they’re as good as either and yes, you know the policy around here is only to review things when we’re feeling positive and yes, we have gushed about Snuff many times on these fractured pages (or before that in print) but it really is hard to find fault in anything Snuff do.

We have songs here most Snuff followers have heard before, then again, none of us have really heard them like this, and as obvious as it always was that a Snuff acoustic album would work, I wasn’t quite expected them to work this well. The key here is you really don’t need to know these songs, you don’t really need to know Snuff to appreciate how good this album actually is – most of the time when electric bands make acoustic albums they’re for no one besides the die hard fans and they bore the hell out of the rest of us, this, if you don’t already know Snuff, would be as good a starting point as any. It feels natural, it feels right, they’re maturing, growing old disgracefully well (excellent album name as well).  The songs here are embellished with strings, piano, smiles, lemon curd, cake, tea and fine fine detail – they could have just banged them out at ramming speed on acoustic guitars with Duncan Redmond’s gloriously gruff voice, these really are beautiful versions, lots of care taken here and if Donald Duck was here he’d quack his heart out in agreement. Could someone please spill the beans and tell the rest of the world, Chalice of Lunacy feels brilliantly upbeat, surprising so. of course they mostly sound restrained in this guise, they sound wonderful to a sad old git like me. We kind of expect Snuff to be motoring most of the time, in this almost reflective mood we can really get to grips with the lyrics, and as much as there’s always emotion with a Snuff song, as much as it is always from the heart, there’s something particularly special here hearing their underrated song writing performed like this. You’ve got to love Snuff, you’ve got to love songs like Nick Motown performed this way, dare we say Thief sounds like a classic bit of Madness pop? Oh you’ve got to love Snuff, ice cream and what? A whip crack through the best of days in the best of ways, celebrate them like the national treasures they are, you’ve got to love Snuff, excellent acoustic album. (sw).    

Find the album on Bandcamp or the Snuff website

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And here, just in case, is what they sound like when they’re plugged in

And that time we though we were watching them for the very last time