Swagger Punks Hot Snakes Are Back, Hear 'Six Wave Hold-Down'

Hot Snakes is a rock 'n' roll band. Just the name alone — Hot Snakes — sounds like a weathered 45 from the Nuggets proto-punk era, when no one really knew what they were doing. When John Reis started Hot Snakes with Drive Like Jehu bandmate Rick Froberg in the early 2000s, that felt like the M.O.: plug in and play as loud as possible. In 2005, they broke up.

The chaos punks in Drive Like Jehu since reunited with sporadic gigs and a thrilling tour, Reis' Rocket From The Crypt is going concern nearly three decades strong, and Froberg's band Obits closed up shop in 2015. Hot Snakes today announces its first album in 14 years with "Six Wave Hold-Down." It's exactly what you want out of a Hot Snakes jam, with a riff that snarls and swaggers like a hot rod, its wild hair of a melody built into the stylish chrome.

The genesis of Jericho Sirens seems to have been spurred on by a facetious (but still well-deserved) humblebrag.

"I considered stopping playing guitar on a social media poll after I completely mastered the instrument," Reis writes in a press release. "But so many people kept sending me letters and voicemail messages, asking me at the dry cleaners, or the butcher shop to bring back Hot Snakes. They were missing rock and roll music. I've always considered Hot Snakes to be more in the vein of the proto-Vog movement of the early '70s. But to these people, this is their rock 'n' roll. I understand that. I totally understand people's desire to be controlled and humiliated by my guitar. Anyone can play the stupid guitar. What they want is for me to use it as a branding iron."

Consider us Reis'd.

Jericho Sirens comes out March 16 via Sub Pop.

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