Given the amount of time that I spend in Glasgow basements, you'd think I'd have noticed a band that seemed like it belonged in such places. Not only belonged but actually lived there. A band like Schnapps perhaps. But I didn't.
So, with the philosophical reflection out of the way, on to their album "Nasty Buffet". It's a dirty thing too with Jnr. Crawford doing as fine an affectation of a drunken drawl as you are likely to find north of the border while a full dozen cans of slurring, reverb laden guitar stack up beneath him. This album certainly isn't for polite company unless it is the kind of polite company that likes to stub cigarettes out on you as Schnapps take the check shirt approach to exorcising the punk pioneer influences with the likes of "More To Life Than Peach", in particular, being dirty and dangerous enough to warrant a comparison with Richard Hell and the Voidoids.
With no apparent desire to run out of steam, they blast through the album's sleazy star track "Crossdresser" before indulging in a fine example of retrospective Scottish indie rock with "Lips". Of course, under all the swaggering bravado and attitude, Schnapps are actually nice boys and just about manage to suggest redemption in "Get Back On It". Just about, that is. I believe in the Easter Bunny too.
This is honest to goodness moral decay and Schnapps are the reason why you can turn volume knobs all the way up.