Dilly Dally – “Snakehead” (Singles Going Steady)

Emmanuel Elone: Although the band’s name is Dilly Dally, they do anything but that on “Snakehead”. As soon as the quick two-minute song starts, filthy distorted guitar shrieks all over the track while the drums pound out a rhythm that sounds like something Dave Grohl would have done for Nirvana. The female vocalist also is reminiscent of Nirvana, with some bellowing, passionate singing and mundane yet ominously dark lyrics. And, while the band still feels simply like an amalgamation of their grunge and punk influences, they do a great job at capturing the passion and energy in those genres on “Snakehead”. [7/10]

Pryor Stroud: With a ragged torched-punk wail mixed together from equal parts anguish and unbridled rage, Dilly Dally’s Katie Monks sings in lacerations and blows straight to the jugular. Which is to say, she doesn’t so much vocalize syllables as pulverize them into being, wringing their necks until they confess the sounds they contain, and it is this method she shares, most notably, with Hop Along’s Frances Quinlan. In “Snake Head”, she wields this method to describe herself as a medusa-like monster in a quickly degenerating relationship. “Snakes are comin’ out of my head,” she sings, “And there’s blood between my legs”, and you can hear the influence of Pixies’ Black Francis tunneling through the lyric; perhaps, she is casting herself as the “devil between” Francis and his enchained lover from Doolittle’s “Hey”, giving flesh, form, and tongue to a love-wrecking creature that was before only a passing shadow. [7/10]

Chris Ingalls: Fans of sloppy, guitar-heavy power pop punk will find plenty to chew on here, from the Pixies-esque melodic leads and soaring choruses to the drunken female vocals with attitude to spare. But with a run time of less than three minutes, it already seems to overstay its welcome. [6/10]

Chad Miller: The chorus was really exciting. The melody was short and anything but sweet which only added to the fun of it all. The guitar part is consistently amazing throughout the piece. I wasn’t as much of a fan of the verses with the oddly drunken sounding speech, but the music is still really good, and it serves as a nice contrast to the glorious amounts of attitude presented in the chorus. [8/10]

SCORE: 7.00