Words: Dan Smith
The Snuts are a fascinating band to me. Forming in 2015 the band have released 3 albums so far: ‘W.L.’, ‘Burn The Empire’ and ‘Millennials’.
Now when it comes to these three records, none of them stick to the same genre. Their debut attempt ‘W.L.’ is what I would consider generic indie. I don’t mean this is a negative way at all, but hits like ‘Glasgow’ and ‘Always’ are your classic indie, sing along, festival anthems. Alongside your slower tracks ‘Top Deck’ and my personal favourite ‘No Place I’d Rather Go’, this is a fun, easy listen which put the band on the map.
Their follow-up album in 2022 ‘Burn The Empire’ is a heavier, more in your face record aimed at calling out the system, or rather ‘Burn The Empire’. The title track sets the tone of the attitude of this album alongside ‘The Rodeo’. Although you still see a softer side in ‘End of the Road (Feat. Rachel Chinouriri’, the album was a drastic move away from the fun singalong ‘W.L’ and is, in my opinion, their weakest album so far.
We then move on to ‘Millennials’ which was released just under a year ago in 2024. This again was a complete change in the bands sound, going for a more upbeat indie-pop sound filled drum machines and jangly sounding guitars. This was more of a return to the initial familiar sound of The Snuts, with songs ‘Gloria’ and ‘Millionaires’ being fan favourites, and live set staples.
If I were to rank these albums, it would be ‘W.L.’, ‘Millennials’ and ‘Burn The Empire’, and it seems like this is universally mirrored by fans with their debut hitting UK Number 1 in the album charts, ‘Millennials’ hitting UK Number 2 and ‘Burn The Empire’ hitting UK Number 3.
So what next for The Snuts?
The Snuts strike me as a band who just enjoy doing what they want to do. They don’t get bogged down in the idea of releasing music for other people. They release it for themselves and I predict this is why each album has been so different to the last.
Getting stuck in a rut of releasing the same sound has been to the detriment of many bands in the past. We only have to look at how Catfish and the Bottlemen capitulated following the release of their third album ‘The Balance’. But after three albums, it is difficult to see where The Snuts can go from here, or if they are destined to remain within the 400-500k monthly listeners they currently have.
Now this is no mean feat. I imagine 99% of artists we feature on this page would absolutely snap my hand off if I offered them 400,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, but is it just me, or does it feel like The Snuts should be much higher than this?
One reddit user queried the same question as me, to which LukeAllen7777777 stated “Strong Scottish accent, which makes it difficult to understand the songs for people who are not from the UK, without a major record company behind them that helps with the band’s promotion and marketing, lack of hits or songs that are known outside their fan bubble . I think these are the reasons”.
Now, I’d like to hope it isn’t their Scottish accent holding them back, as I have had no issues understanding them, and when I saw them at Tramlines last year, they were one of the standout acts. What I really appreciated, was the fact they sounded so much like they do on record, in fact the differences were minimal. When I compare that to Jamie T who headlined on that day, it was night and day who was better.
When it comes to Scottish acts though, they are very, very proud of their own. We only need to look at the success of Gerry Cinnamon and how his stock has been inflated by Scottish patriots, and I would argue that The Snuts are 10x the artist Gerry Cinnamon is. Now I’m not here to throw shade or start a needless debate on the two as they are so different, but I hope this highlights that I don’t think it is the accent holding them back, otherwise artists like Gerry Cinnamon or Paolo Nutini would also have been surpressed.
So what is it? Let me know what you think in the comments below.
To close off today, I am going to answer the question of this video. What next for The Snuts? Well… I don’t know. I know right, what a waste of time this has been!
Due to the way they have released albums, we can’t be sure on the direction the band is going to take and as mentioned earlier, they do what they want so even if I was to have a guess at what is next for The Snuts, they’d probably see my comment and want to do the opposite just to prove me wrong. We are nearly 1 year on from ‘Millennials’ and I wouldn’t be surprised if later in 2025 we start getting teasers for a new album, to come in 2026.
I know some people would also like to see frontman Jack Cochrane do something on his own, perhaps acoustically similar to projects we’ve seen from the likes of Jacob Slater and Grian Chatten in the off years when their bands, Wunderhorse and Fontaines D.C. haven’t released a record. This remains to be seen, but I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to this.
All I can say for certain, whatever The Snuts do next, I’m sure it will be brilliant and I hope they start to get the recognition they deserve.
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