Snog - Dear Valued Customer

Label: Machinery
Catologue Number: MA14-2
Format: CD
Date: 1995
Style: Techno-Industrial
Rating: 8/10
Reviewer: Sidney James

Originally released back in 1995, Dear Valued Customer was Snog’s second album and clearly showed that they were miles ahead of the third generation of Industrialists who were set to dominate the dance floors in the latter half of that decade.

Like fellow Aussie Tom Ellard, Snog main man David Thrusell has developed a sound that is identifiably his own. Be in the rich film soundtrack inspired noir of his Soma project, his noisy Techno as Black lung or the John Barry-esqe film score to the movie The Hard Word. Consistently high levels of song writing mark all of them and composition, something, which is mainly unheard of in the murky world of Industrial dance, where the four to the floor beat, and the distorted vocal are King.

With Dear Valued Customer we see Thrussel at a crossroads. The cut and paste electronica of the debut album Lies Inc has been replaced with a harder techno inspired sound which nods in the direction of Black Lung (which was born when Thrussel decided to release the Hey Christian God E.P.) as well as the twanging cowboy guitar soundtracks of Soma’s Hollow Earth.

However unlike these two side projects the main focus in Snog is Thrussel’s vocals and anti-capitalist lyrics. Both of which may put a lot of people off, firstly because a lot of people don’t like their politics and music to mix and also because Thrussel’s voice can grate on first listen with its nasal pitch.

Those who are not put off by this combination are in for a real treat though as “Dear Valued Customer” is a tour de force of electronic music. Covering everything from the banging techno of “Cliché” and “Langley, Virgina” to the rich electro of the Vangelis sampling “Empires” to the short bursts of dark ambience of “The Yuppie Shall Inherit to the Earth.” All of it is immaculately constructed and has not dated since its release. Nothing is wasted and the sampling is skilfully blended into, rather than being something stuck in as an after thought.

After “Dear Valued Customer”, Thrussel took Snog on an industrial country trip, and took its hard-hitting techno sounds into darker and noisier routes with Black Lung. Dear Valued Customer was the springboard that really launched Thrussel as one of the key players in the last days of the Industrial music revolution. Its just a shame that so few joined him on his quest and decided to take the easy route of making goth friendly club music.