The log-bearing, beat-bashing eco-punk techno group took the forest to The Crescent’s stage on their Hard Times Furious Dancing tour.
The stage of The Crescent is flooded with an eerie, mossy, laser green light. It’s only 9pm but the air is already charged with the energy of midnight raves, and there’s a crowd that stretches to the back of the room impatient to begin dancing.
Enter Snapped Ankles, who look like they’ve just stumbled out of a forest growing in a derelict industrial estate. Their bodies are draped in the wispy tendrils of ghillie suits, tangerine hi-vis vests and what looks like blowtorch masks – dressed ready to start a rave, a cult, or a war.
Indeed, this tour, and upcoming release Hard Times Furious Dancing, presents itself as an attempt to spread roots in a cultural landscape in decline. It’s expensive to go on tour, it’s expensive to run independent venues, and it’s expensive to go to gigs. Everyone is losing. Armed with just a crowdfunder and a promise to ‘sell their souls’, Snapped Ankle’s struggle for funding speaks to a larger crack in the system.
Hard times require furious dancing. That’s why it feels so pertinent when the cracked bassline of ‘Pay The Rent’ blares through The Crescent’s speakers and the crowd dance their dues. “I’M GONNA PAY THE RENT” booms the frontman in a distorted voice, sounding almost like a dalek.
Over the next few songs the beats blur into one big protest march. Their sound is high-tempo, rock and roll, a bit psychedelic and filled with whirring, ritualistic, rhythms. ‘Raoul’, from their upcoming album, is a headbanger with soaring choruses that echo a wolf howling in the dead of night. Meanwhile ‘Rhythm is Our Business’ is a call to arms, a rallying cry to get down and dance among videogame-esque arpeggios and grungy guitars.
Since 2011 this sound has been bubbling and fermenting from the soily corners of London’s warehouse scene. Underpinning their aesthetic is a mish-mash of ecology and electricity, with albums titled Come Play The Trees and homemade instruments which turn trees and logs into DIY synthesisers.
They’re definitely not technophiles but not entirely naturalists either. In fungal form Snapped Ankles emerge from the weird world that grows from urban and natural chaos. It’s sort of like if you placed your leftover food under a microscope to find that all the bacteria is grooving together as a colony.
Dressed in their ghillie suits and equipped with their hi vis vests, that’s exactly how it feels at The Crescent. When the crowd loses energy, the band’s frontman descends into the audience like a mad wizard or the pied piper, wielding his DIY log synthesiser like a magician’s wand commanding everyone to keep dancing.
It’s funny to watch the more hesitant gig-goers smile nervously as he makes his way over to them. At one point he splits everyone into three groups: the seagulls, the sand and the waves, and each has to dance the part. It’s a surreal moment that feels reminiscent of primary school assemblies, only more unhinged – like we’re being prepared to make a sacrifice.
To embrace the unhinged seems to be the answer that Snapped Ankles offers for a world that feels like it’s on fire. Like the rushing bass that swells and breaks into chorus, the constant motion of today’s culture can leave you feeling dizzy. The only option is to move in the midst of madness.
So, if you get the chance to see them live, you better be dancing furiously.
