The short answer is an emphatic yes. More than a half-decade after their breakthrough debut album, Snowden has returned and the extended wait has proven resoundingly worth it. No One In Control is a remarkable collection, lit with impassioned creativity and coruscating emotional power. Jeffares – the multi-talented mind behind Snowden – toiled for almost six years, pushing himself and his music ever closer to madness, and that hermetic intensity can be heard in the record’s every finely etched facet. From the syrupy pulsebeats of “So Red” to the nihilistic euphoria of the first single, “The Beat Comes,” Snowden has crafted a vivid portrait of obsession and isolation, of gut-wrenching doubt and ultimate redemption. With its seamless integration of haunting melodies, rhythmic ingenuity, and hypnagogic songcraft, No One In Control sees Snowden’s artistry and ambition ascending to hitherto untouched new heights.
Snowden emerged in 2004 and were soon hailed as one of the Atlanta underground’s leading new artists, with MTV linking the band alongside Deerhunter and Black Lips as avatars of the burgeoning scene. Released in 2006, Anti-Anti fully delivered upon the band’s promise, earning worldwide popular success and critical applause for its enigmatic blend of deep grooves and post punk atmospherics. Snowden toured hard, building a fervent fan following via innumerable headline dates and shows alongside the likes of Arcade Fire and Kings of Leon.
But just as Snowden prepared their next move, Jeffares found himself entangled in contract dispute that put the kibosh on whatever career momentum he had gained. Trapped in legal limbo, he eased back into the life of a starving artist, subletting and setting up studios wherever he landed, from Chicago to Atlanta to New York. In due time, Jeffares had begun constructing a boldly beautiful song cycle inspired by the seclusion.
“I was always paranoid about writing ballads. In a bout of writer’s block I let one through.”
He ended up writing quite a few, though unsurprisingly, “they were all a little bit twisted.” Songs
like “Don’t Really Know Me” and the title track were marked by romantic pessimism and cynical seclusion, their introspective exploration buoyed by Jeffares’ tricky unification of Anti-Anti’s spellbinding shoegaze melodics with ebullient Big Beat and Madchester-inspired rhythms.
“I didn’t want my stuff to have that swarm this time,” he says. “I wanted it to have more kick to it. I was always trying to balance that. It’s a hard line to walk."
Time marched on as Jeffares spent countless all-nighters in the studio, tinkering away on the record while also trying to find it a good home. Night after night, he would question his previous evening’s efforts, gutting songs then rebuilding them from the naked track up. The process, he admits, ended up snowballing into OCD.
“Everyone kept saying, you’ve got to stop working on this record,” Jeffares says, “but with no good way to release it, I kept tweaking it. I could’ve had a finished record at any point, it just wouldn’t have been the record that I would’ve had six months later.”
In 2011, Snowden’s old friends and tourmates Kings of Leon invited Jeffares to join forces with their newly launched Serpents & Snakes Records. With the finish line now in sight, Jeffares considered self-producing the final album, but knew that he couldn’t be objective having listened to some of these tracks more than 500 times. He reached out to producer Bill Skibbe – known for his work alongside The Kills, The Dead Weather, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Adult. – and in November, lit out for Skibbe’s Benton Harbor, Michigan studio for three weeks of sessions.
“I made the commitment that I was going to walk in and walk out with a record,” Jeffares says, “and there’s not going to be any messing with it after that.”
Having already tracked – and re-tracked – most of the album on his own, Jeffares and Skibbe spent much of their time “experimenting” with guitar textures and vocal arrangements. Longtime Snowden drummer Chandler Rentz came in to lay down an array of taut rhythms and clattering beats based on the original programming.
“Bill helped me figure out better ways to get some sounds,” Jeffares says, “more ways to get emotion in the recordings. I’d been messing with these tracks for so long there wasn’t a lot to do to most of them.”
Indeed, No One In Control is a remarkably detailed and visceral work, Jeffares’ infinite adventurism resulting in a fully realized aural universe in each individualistic track. With its complex architecture and inverted bursts of entropic energy, the epic title piece stands out as a tour de force of incandescent psychedelia and lacerating self-examination. Other milestones include a stark take on Love & Rockets’ “No Words No More” (first heard on 2009’s New Tales To Tell tribute) and the elegiac finale, “This Year,” which closes the album with surprising delicacy and hope. Upon completing the sessions, Jeffares held true to his initial promise to himself and pulled away from the material he’d been obsessing over for the better part of a decade.
“I can’t,” he says. “I can’t listen to it at all. I accidentally heard a track the other day and realized there was a backing vocal missing. I was like, ‘No. I’ve got to let it go.’”
Now based out of Austin, Jeffares is preparing for No One In Control’s long awaited release by solidifying Snowden’s intricate live presentation, the present line-up comprised of players assembled during his last stay in New York City. But for the most part, he has spent the past year recharging his creative batteries, “trying to live a life not centered around music.”
That said Jeffares recently set up a studio, determined to begin the next Snowden album before hitting the road hard in 2013. Ever eager to push his music’s own far-flung boundaries, he suggests future efforts will be more beat heavy and electronic in nature. One thing is certain, however: the arrival of the astonishingly affective No One In Control represents the culmination of a difficult and risky chapter for Snowden as well as the proverbial new beginning for Jordan Jeffares himself.
Black Eyes
Snowden Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Lit by the glow of a streetlight
Held up by hallowed ground
And cigarettes flicking all around
In your black eyes
I hoped that I would find
That you were hiding
Walked into the concourse
At the end of the tunnel were my dim lit saviors
All raucous and full of glam
But not the kind that I left uptown
And you looked dark and pensive
As your heels hit the floor to the blaring Division
But you didn't have much to say
But you were beautiful anyway
In your black eyes
I hoped that I would find
That you were hiding
Hiding something
But in your black eyes
Lit by the glow of a streetlight
You were hiding
You were hiding something
Deep inside the concourse
I learned of the fuel of the celebration
Seemed the saviors were down with it
Even you had your nose in it
Deep inside the concourse
I longed for a difference in the conversation
But underneath the swinging model hair
Were the words I hear everywhere
In your black eyes
I hoped you were hiding
In your black eyes you were hiding
You were hiding nothing at all
Don't want to sing it now
Don't want to shake, shake, shake
In "Black Eyes," Snowden paints a vivid picture of a late-night encounter in a busy concourse. The singer is initially drawn to someone with "black eyes," hoping to find something hidden within them. As they explore the concourse, the singer finds themselves surrounded by revelers, but the festivities hold little meaning or value to them. Through it all, the mysterious figure with the black eyes remains enigmatic and elusive.
The song's structure and tone suggest a dreamlike quality, with each verse building on the last to create a sense of disorientation and confusion. The repetition of the phrase "You were hiding something" underscores the singer's frustration with the inability to uncover the truth behind the black-eyed figure. The use of sensory details, such as the "glow of a streetlight" and the "blaring Division," add to the overall atmosphere of the song while highlighting the singer's heightened awareness of their surroundings.
Line by Line Meaning
Walking by the concourse
I was walking past the busy area
Lit by the glow of a streetlight
The light of the streetlamp brightened the place
Held up by hallowed ground
I stood my ground firmly, determined not to be swayed
And cigarettes flicking all around
People all around me were smoking and tossing cigarette butts
In your black eyes
When I looked into your eyes
I hoped that I would find
I was hoping that I would discover
That you were hiding
That you were concealing
You were hiding something
That you were keeping something secret from me
Walked into the concourse
I entered the bustling area
At the end of the tunnel were my dim lit saviors
The end of the area seemed like a refuge from the chaos
All raucous and full of glam
The atmosphere was lively and festive
But not the kind that I left uptown
It was different from what I was used to in my upscale environment
And you looked dark and pensive
You appeared troubled and lost in thought
As your heels hit the floor to the blaring Division
Your footsteps stood out amidst the noisy music
But you didn't have much to say
You remained quiet and did not speak much
But you were beautiful anyway
Despite your silence, you still looked lovely to me
Deep inside the concourse
Further into the crowded area
I learned of the fuel of the celebration
I discovered what was powering the joyous atmosphere
Seemed the saviors were down with it
The people I thought were 'saviors' were also involved in it
Even you had your nose in it
Even you were participating in it
I longed for a difference in the conversation
I wished for a change in the topics being discussed
But underneath the swinging model hair
Despite appearances, there wasn't much substance
Were the words I hear everywhere
I kept hearing the same things being repeated over and over
In your black eyes
When I looked into your eyes
I hoped you were hiding
I wished that you were concealing something
In your black eyes you were hiding
There was something hidden in the darkness of your eyes
You were hiding nothing at all
In the end, there was nothing kept from me after all
Don't want to sing it now
I don't feel like singing anymore
Don't want to shake, shake, shake
I don't feel like dancing and being merry
Contributed by Tyler O. Suggest a correction in the comments below.