Snuffy Smile Records seemed to have a small cult following for fans of Snuff, Leatherface and British pop punk. The kind of label where people tried to seek out every release, as difficult as it was for those outside of Japan. Even as a huge fan of those bands and the pursuit of rare records in the 90's, that following didn't include me for some reason. I had some early Snuffy Smile releases and was always hoping for straight up Snuff derivative punk, but I guess it was too original for me. Well, I won't sugarcoat it: the bands weren't that great.
Until I Excuse. Veeerrrrrryyyyy derivative, but of Leatherface instead. With an equally "interesting" singer. The pretty much unintelligible vocals sound like they're going to give out at any moment. Or like he'll need the same voice surgery as Blake from Jawbreaker.
But the key draw of the band is the music. Like Leatherface, the 2 guitarists weave awesome guitar parts together, trading off on rhythm and more intricate melodies. They're not trying to hide their influence and I'm not going to pretend that they're completely original. But the world can't have enough Leatherface or clones, in my opinion. I will say that they do have a slightly harder edge though, maybe akin to Articles Of Faith, who they cover on this album.
Basically, if you want a Japanese take on Leatherface, this is the band for you. I actually prefer listening to their 2 albums over most of the post 2000 Leatherface albums.
I've also tacked on their 2 tracks from the compilation I Hope The End Is Always The Beginning. I did manage to track down all of their other 7"s and compilation songs, so hopefully I can post those at some point.
I Excuse - Burn The Empty To The Ash (vbr 0)
Very early Snuffy Smile bands weren't all that good, but the stuff from around 1999 - 2005 or so was amazing. I Excuse, Minority Blues Band, The Urchin, The Because, Blotto - all fantastic.
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