album premiere: Y2k - Snow Roller
words: Michael Brooks
As my twenties draw nearer to a close, I long more and more for the simpler days of my youth. Most of my friends still live at home with their parents because they can’t afford to make it own their own, being crushed to death under the weight of their student loan payments. At only 25 my body is already beginning to deteriorate, I pop pain killers like they’re Tic Tacs just to make it through the day without a stiff neck. Snow Roller frontman Collin Krtiz gets that. Y2K, Snow Roller’s third album, is a document of all the things that suck about growing up; worrying about the future, watching your friends move away, and figuring out how to find the time and resources to do the things that make you happy. It’s an album that’s heavy but never unrelenting, restrained but not unchallenging, and slow-moving without ever being sluggish. It’s an exercise in patience, a fuzzed-out quarter life crisis played at half speed.
Y2K is a bit of a departure from Snow Roller’s previous LP’s–it’s their harshest work to date, but also their most refined. Previously released singles “Kings Of Hartford” and “Mr. Longo” are no-frills indie rockers, the latter features a shrilling guitar lead that guides the track, a sharp dissonant squeal that demands your attention. Featuring a rawer approach to production than on previous releases, Snow Roller show that they have nothing to hide. There’s no studio wizardry afoot here, proving how strong Krtiz’s instincts as a songwriter have become. “Terminal Laundry” and “Wear and Tear” are infectious pop-rock earworms, sort of sounding like a three piece version of early 90’s Superchunk. “Window”, one of the softest tracks on the albums, is an easygoing, almost delicate tune about the ways in which we change as we grow older. Y2K is an album about trying to figure out where all the time has gone, an album for those of us who aren’t sure about what the future may hold.