On their third long player Circle High and Wide Snout expand their sound even further, eschewing their earlier, rawer and more R&B tinged rave-ups for a pop sheen that dabbles in the sun-dappled water of acousticism and mutes sounds. It's a much more subtle album than you'd expect, particularly after the first single, 'Hey Hey Hey', which is the most straightforward song on the album. 

The new single, 'Got Sold On Heaven', harks back to the more interesting pop experimentation of dinosaur Jr, while my personal pick of the crop, 'Down Without A Sound', drags in some mild scratching, neat keyboard lines and some of vocalists Ross' best work to date. But the real strength of Circle High and Wide is its distillation of Snout's various influenced and tastes, rather than being a mere pastiche, although Ross freely admits, that you can't always escape your influences. 

“Well I guess it's just a case of taking which bits we like and, errrm, although like I'm kind of saying this because I've had a lot of leading questions I guess about how cut-and-pastey we are, and I'm starting to think that it actually is sort of the soul kinda thing. ‘Cause a lot of those influences and things are so ingrained in me from years ago that it's not something that I'd even necessarily think about. I'm not quoting my favourite bands, trying to sound like anyone in particular, but obviously to some extent… we couldn't help it,” he offers helpfully. 

“A lot of people have this idea of us as post-modern guys taking snatches from here and there, which is arguably quite true. I just wouldn't like to give the impression that there's no feeling behind what we're doing. We're not smart-arsey about it at all. In fact it's just the way we work, the way some people might have certain disorder and they might see in four dimensions or something, it just so happen that this is the way we think about things and (have been) brought up to see things and brought up to express yourself in I guess little snatches of sound. But it's the kind of strainer of your soul to some degree.” 

“So I guess it ended up looking kind of pop art but there is definitely soul in there as well.” 

Organic is more the word I'd use: Circle High and Wide is a warm, coherent collection of songs, not some cold trawl through the ashes of somebody else's record collection. Snout's songs are never obvious (something rare these days); occasionally the music seems at odds with itself, and more often the lyrical picture is definitely the flipside to the musical component. Take the title track and the second single for instance. 

“It's essentially just about breaking through the depression that comes from just lack of hope,” Ross explains carefully. “I have a sort of really bad negative steak basically, and it manifests itself in misanthropy. But you've got the world, and the things that are going down are just terrible, and to be perfectly honest… So its just about being happy despite that. But I don't really like to talk about it I think its going down the gurgler… So its just about being happy despite that. But I don't really like to talk about, because its just really kind of boring to people, that stuff.”  

Not necessarily. 

“Yeah, but part of me being a sort of business guy about it too, I don't like to talk about because I just sound like I'm going to bad-vibe people about the album,” he laughs gently. 

For such a lyrically heavy song, ‘Circle High and Wide’ is remarkably upbeat musically. 

“I've done a lot of interviews now and I've formulated an idea about that, which will sound really contrived if I try and spit it out at you but essentially it's kind of like the lyrics… Because people don't tend to take in lyrics necessarily, they'll often focus on the beat and the music and stuff, the lyrics end up forming the subtext to the music. So you can be really enjoying the grooves and the major key melodies or what have you, but the lyrics are I guess the grooves and the rhythms are the sort of thing that stops it descending dirge.” 

There's a very obvious warmth on the album that wasn't nearly so apparent on it's predecessors, something that Ross ascribes more to the means of recording Circle High and Wide, rather than any overall vision of how it was to sound. 

“We did have a very strong idea of what we wanted to do, but it's also the place where we recorded – Hothouse, in St Kilda – has a really nice old Neve valve desk from I think the early seventies, I think it's the old Alberts desk that AC/DC would have used. And it's just beautiful sounding. And also Greg Wales did a bang-up job on production and stuff.” 

Any ghosts in the machine? 

“There were heaps of ghosts of AC/DC. Just funny little things, we kept finding strange similarities and certain fine points and things… but you can find these similarities if your looking for them.” 

And there's plenty more to look for in circle High and Wide, an album Ross says is inspired by “things that are just a bit more expansive than the inner city clubs”. 

“I find pleasure in different sorts of things, and I'll talk to people about stuff and they honestly look at me like I'm a fuckwit, so I don't actually feel akin to a lot of people. If I start talking to someone about watching the wind comb the grass on a paddock, they're just not into it.” 

Snout play the Hotel Great Northern, Byron Bay, this Friday June 5, the Chelsea this Saturday June 6 and the Playroom on Sunday June 7. 
 

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