Snowden: No One In Control

Snowden
No One In Control
(Relativity/Serpents & Snakes)
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

This one man band (Snowden aka Jordan Jeffares) and well regarded indie producer (Bill Skibbe) are very much a studio concoction. The vibe is insular and dark, some might say dreary, with Jeffares’ voice sounding disconnected, vulnerable and alone amongst layered atmospheric keyboards, ghostly drum machines and skeletal guitars. Similar to the less pop side of Love & Rockets, the originator of “No Words No More” (the disc’s lone cover), Jeffares has nailed his sound and sticks to it over the course of a dozen tracks that unspool gradually in an hour. Little jumps out but this American musician creates a particularly brooding, very British ambiance shared by bands such as early Psychedelic Furs, the Cure and Berlin-era Bowie. Some songs are too slight to be memorable but the album’s whole is greater than the sum of its somewhat similar sounding parts. Occasionally an upbeat melody jumps out of the sonic soup such as “No Way to Go Back” with its reserved yet funky drum beat and the first single “The Beat Comes” that boasts a chorus you’ll be humming after the rest of the disc’s mood dissipates. Six years in the making, Jeffares is in no rush to release music he doesn’t believe in. That individualistic streak runs through the oddly named No One in Control, a project where one man is very much in control and the addition of a band might have diluted his vision instead of enhancing it.