I wish I knew where “Snakeskin” came from. It’s not like singer Bradford Cox is doing much to tell me where this funky fit of fried grooves is coming from; the little Deerhunter I know hung itself up to a looser mix of Sonic Youth and psychedelic pop. That Deerhunter was a Deerhunter of shoegaze and art rock, something alien to that tightened groove that winds through “Snakeskin’s” crunch.
So here I am, left to imagine that fateful day when a suddenly outgoing Bradford Cox wandered into a bayou’s only discotheque (the hippest club on plastic barrels!). Maybe he was on something? Maybe he was drunk? He was probably neither, since drugs aren’t exactly a Bradford Cox thing. Either way, Cox passed by the bouncer and stepped into the dancefloor’s glow, catching the apparently-still-contagious Saturday Night Fever. With an infectious groove in his head, and just enough shimmer for a guitar, Cox threw together a jam in the bayou air.
That jam was “Snakeskin,” a disco song with a swamp stench and quite possibly grooviest bayou rocker since “Down on the Corner.” Cox sounds sincerely manic on the mic, his snake charming rant matching the infectious rhythm of the guitars and drums. Even as the song spills into the noisy, avant garde in the coda (there’s the Deerhunter I know), that same funky strut marches on, tying everything together with a steady, delicious groove as a psychedelic swirl splashes across the end. Who knew acid-wash dissonance could have that kind of swagger?