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Twin’s peak
Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield and her sister Allison scale songwriting heights together again.
By Victoria Segal.
Snocaps ★★★★★
Snocaps
ANTI-. CD/DL/LP
ACCORDING TO a statement issued by core members Katie and Allison Crutchfield, Snocaps is not a long-term project. There will be this unheralded release – a Halloween surprise, it turned out – a scattering of live dates, and then the twin sisters’ project will, they say, “be put on ice”. Both artists have established musical lives beyond, after all: Katie released Tigers Blood, her sixth album as Waxahatchee, in 2024, while Allison has combined stints in her sister’s band with her own group Swearin’ and a solo career.
The fleeting nature of Snocaps isn’t out of keeping with the siblings’ working patterns so far. They have been making music since they were 15, holed up in their family’s basement in Birmingham, Alabama, teaching themselves drums (Allison) and guitar (Katie) with the help of songs by Guided By Voices and Hole. Their first band, The Ackleys, allowed them to carve out their own space at their hometown’s DIY punk-hub Cave 9; they have been in constant motion since, locked into the on-the-road life of the touring musician, shedding various side-projects and collaborations kerbside (Bad Banana, for example, or Great Thunder) as they motor away. Their most sustained joint endeavour to date was the heroically named PS Eliot, who released a best-of compilation called 2007-2011 in 2016, and whose songs – Acid Flashbacks, Mood Ring, Watch On Mute – remain scratchy, van-rumpled snapshots of ill-fitting twentysomething ennui, picking up the constant thrum of a life just out of reach.