16 Easy Tunes For the End Times

Snog is Australian growler David Thrussell, a man with serious doubts about capitalism, religion, and organizations in general, and a delightful inability to settle down in a single musical style. That inability is clearly evident on this best-of, 16 Easy Tunes for the End Times, that covers almost 15 years of output under the Snog moniker. Musically, it touches on everything from old-school jackboot industrial sounds to electro-funk and even country; lyrically, the song titles say it all: "The Human Germ," "Hey, Christian God," "Corporate Slave," "Dear Valued Customer," "Real Wise Yuppie" -- you get the idea. At his best, such as on the minimalist industrial thud of "Cliche" and the invigoratingly funky "Real Estate Man," Thrussell gracefully blends harangue and pleasure; at his worst, as on "The Human Germ" and "Real Wise Yuppie," he combines plodding, pedestrian music with cookie-cutter misanthropy to create songs that are both condescending and uninteresting. But then he brings in those subtle country elements, and you start wondering whether maybe you missed something before. [The disc includes another 16 bonus tracks in MP3 format, along with some multimedia files, all of which are available only by computer and won't show up in a conventional CD player.] ~ Rick Anderson