Snakeskin: We Live In Sand

It feels somewhat trite to speak about war from afar while people continue to be at the coal face of it, experiencing immeasurable loss, trauma and grief. To create art through these catastrophes is seemingly normalised to those who have spent years and decades experiencing it, and those of us on the sidelines can only be inspired by these architects. Architects such as Snakeskin.

Perhaps the duo of Julia Sabra and Fadi Tabbal illuminate it best on The Fear – the centrepiece to Snakeskin’s profoundly compelling third album and second in as many years, We Live In Sand. “The windows are closed / You hear all the strikes / Can’t close your eyes / We stay up on our phones all night,” sings Sabra. It’s direct. It’s no bullshit. It’s warts and all reality.

We Live In Sand isn’t a clarion call. It’s a commentary of real-time events. Word vomiting in a bid to bring catharsis during a time that no one should experience. But for many, this is the common place in a world where supposed leaders and their political manoeuvring have reduced peace to the privileged few.

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While Snakeskin’s 2022 self-titled debut was inspired by the aftermath of the Beirut port explosion in 2020 and last year’s They Kept Our Photographs was written at the beginning of the war in Gaza, on We Live In Sand Sabra and Tabbal are at conflict’s epicentre. Snakeskin’s elusively euphoric dreamscapes that once led to optimism, reduced to starker, cold-eyed dread stifled by their immediate environment. It makes We Live In Sand a much closer listen, as Sabra and Tabbal frame turmoil as poignantly as any artist around.

It’s evident from the first note of the glitch-y electro pop of Ready. With an icy pulse that barely pierces through the force field of static, Sabra parts with her first of many instant snapshots (“Knees Deep in earth / Migrating birds / Born from mud… There’s life inside my bones”).

October Sun follows in what is skewed hymnal pop rife with the anxiety and fear of the destruction of their native Lebanon (“The sky, the rising drones / The sky is ours no more”). Like the nimble dynamism shaped by Tabbal on the excellent Blindsided (“Tried in vain / To stay the same. The world’s been ending / For over a year now”), it’s as direct as Snakeskin has ever been.

The cathedral dirge of Olives Groves and Black Water is a one-two of brooding drones, giving extra weight to the thematic arc of We Live In Sand. Ultimately, it sees Snakeskin pulling the listener from side A to side B, which is where the haunting and harrowing title track awaits. As heartbreaking as any song committed to tape this year, Sabra recounts tragedy where the images swiftly override her words. Flames and rubble, merging for a reprehensible, soul-destroying chaos.

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And on In the Pines, Sabra succumbs to it, crumbling under the weight of despair (“All this time I thought I was fine / All this time, I was cold / In this town, I am old”). It’s here where Sabra reaches sorrow’s core. In real-time, acknowledging that getting by is to put one foot in front of the other. You’re okay, simply because there’s no time to think and take stock. Until there is, which is when the tidal wave hits, and In the Pines is the moment on We Live In Sand where that cold reality is crystallised.

With dark minimalism orchestrated from the bottom of the vortex, if We Live In Sand doesn’t reduce you tears, then you’re probably hollow inside. The best art often comes from the darkest places; the same ones many of us will never encounter. Which again, feels trite to reference, but there’s a truth to it. Then there’s hope; something that for many is all that exists. Hope doesn’t feel as lost when the likes of Snakeskin cut a record like We Live In Sand. Their words and sounds, evidence that perhaps it isn’t completely lost.

We Live In Sand is out now via Beacon Sound / Ruptured Records. Purchase from Bandcamp.