These Arms Are Snakes

It’s not just Starbucks anymore

‘The day Botch broke up was a sad day for the Math-punk kids.

They seemed to have it all. Although the band remained in the shadows of the scene for a majority of their life span, those who knew them respected them. Botch, to many, was the band from which to get your quality Metal-edged punk.

Unfortunately, around the same time, the scene was also destined to suffer the losses of Kill Sadie, Nineironspitfire, as well as another band we promised we wouldn’t mention. The scene was not left completely destitute despite these losses, but there was something definitely missing, something indefinable but nonetheless something. And that something was felt. It was a hole that needed to be filled.

Members of the punk and indie communities have been down in that hole and forced to look up to the heavens for an answer. In the clearing skies, a star shone brightly that led their attentions to the West, where we they to find the birth of a new band in the most unlikely of places.

This band was born to fulfill a musical promise made over a decade ago, in a place that had been all but hopelessly abandoned for its lack of ability to produce a decent amount of songwriting talents. That band is These Arms Are Snakes (TAAS) and that place where the star guided them is Seattle.

“Right now, it is probably the best time for music in Seattle because there are so many great bands,” began These Arms Are Snakes guitarist Ryan Frederiksen. “It is a vast array where no two bands sound alike.”

The Seattle scene has been in the process of reemergence for a few years and now it burgeons fruitfully at a quick and steady pace. Within about half a decade or so, it has put forth a multitude of noteworthy bands including Pretty Girls Make Graves, Murder City Devils, Death Cab For Cutie, as well as many others, including These Arms Are Snakes.

“There’s a lot of love (with heavy emphasis on the word love) goin’ on in Seattle,” continued Frederiksen. “It’s nice but we need some kind of drama, you know what I mean?”

The only noticeable drama that may come out of Seattle is that they finally have earned bragging rights again. The city can point their finger towards cities such as Chicago wondering, “What’s up now?”

It goes without saying that the music groups from this area have not been able to collectively band together and consider themselves a thriving scene for about eight or nine years now, since the word grunge became taboo.

“With grunge, all of those bands got lumped together as one sound, even though Nirvana sounded nothing like Alice in Chains. Now, there’s absolutely no way to pinpoint one, even generic, sound,” says Fredriksen.

One band that has had no difficulties distinguishing itself and finding its own distinct sound is TAAS. They are a band that actually fits the definition of a progressive punk band. Not progressive in the sense that they have long-winded guitar solos, vocals that sound like Geddy Lee, and time signatures that require a metronome, pen and paper, and a calculator to figure out. They are post-prog in that sense. Rather, they are progressive in the sense that they are a visible disturbance, shifting the sands of punk rock.

Within the first thirty seconds of their soon-to-be-released first Jade Tree EP, “This is Meant to Hurt You,” the comparisons to Fugazi are inevitable. The music is tight, intellectual, and complex. Most visibly, vocalist Steve Snere’s voice closely parallels the tones of Ian Mackaye. It’s only a matter of a few more minutes before Snere’s voice takes a back seat and the music unexpectedly changes from hard and thrashing to moody and melodic and back again throughout the rest of the songs.

“It’s kind of cool. Every time people say we sound like a band, it’s something different. Some people have told us that we sound like Fugazi, others think we’re trying to sound like the Refused, and a lot of people actually tell us we sound like the Jesus Lizard,” says Fredriksen.

These Arms have been already deemed the next big Jade Tree band, an impressive feat of accomplishment after only a year of being together. The band’s PR company claims that, although pre-sales on the EP just began, they have already pre-sold around 5,000 CDs and have had nearly a million clicks on their website. There’s something incredibly magnetic about this band.