The blueprint for
Jason Slater
's
Snake River Conspiracy
is
Garbage
, and like that group's leader
Butch Vig
, he has found himself a female lead singer,
Tobey Torres
, to front the band and add an appealingly human element to his densely arranged rock tracks, which take off from industrial noise into many other areas.
Slater
may have spent a long time listening to
Ministry
and
Nine Inch Nails
, but he also has an underlying pop sensibility that leans toward kitsch: two songs borrow elements from movie music, with an excerpt from
John Barry
"Goldfinger"
theme providing the sweeping hook for
"Strangled"
;
"Somebody Hates You"
dips into light Europop here and there; and
"You and Your Friend,"
which should be a single, shows that
has a feel for the throbbing sound of
Dusty Springfield
as filtered through
Chrissie Hynde
. The actual first single is
"Vulcan,"
an expletive-strewn hard rock number that seems intended to establish the group's claim to alternative edginess. But at least initially, college radio was responding to the cover of
the Smiths
'
"How Soon Is Now?,"
suggesting that programmers may have a better sense of
's attempt to straddle styles than the marketing executives at its record company. The intention is to appeal to a broad range of tastes, but the danger is that the band's sound may be too hard for pop fans and too soft for rock fans. What listeners think will depend a lot on which tracks they get to hear. Perhaps because it is the creation of a sole studio maven,
is more a collection of interesting musical ideas than a coherent band, at least on its first album. ~ William Ruhlmann