Snowden saves its insubstantial ideas from ignominy with heavy dose of style
Snowden’s music sounds like Interpol’s dark momentum getting tripped up on The Arcade Fire’s treacherous terrain—lacquered bolts of guitar judder over o -kilter percussion, and anomic vocals blear through the densely layered mix. While Snowden lacks the songwriting lucidity of the aforementioned touchstones, there are plenty nice moments to recommend Anti-Anti to hype-hungry bloggers. At times, you wonder if there are actual songs beneath all the reverb and delay, but then something awesome happens—the dreamily circular sweep of “Like Bullets,” for instance, or when a silvery guitar thread catches up with the infectious mantra of the title track—and it’s easy to forget to care.