New Music
New For 2020
New For 2020: The Snuts
Meet the West Lothian indie rockers making waves on the live scene.
Our New for 2020 guide introduces our top picks of the hottest new emerging live bands and musicians for those looking to find the best new acts to see live in 2020. Find the full list here.
If you’ve ever been to the much-loved Glasgow venue King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, you’ll have seen their famous staircase. Some of the biggest bands to have walked through the doors of the venue including The View, The Killers, Blossoms, George Ezra, Wolf Alice, Paolo Nutini, The 1975, Mumford & Sons and more have their names, and the year they played there adorned in white writing on the stairs leading up to the main room.
Judging by the trajectory of West Lothian rockers The Snuts, who played and sold out their first ever Glasgow show at the venue, they’ll be seeing their name on there soon enough.
The band dropped All Your Friends earlier this year, their first on the major label Parlophone and a perfect introduction to those yet to discover the band. The song starts deceptively low key with a creeping guitar line before the bass and drums take over. All Your Friends the bursts into life around the one minute mark, delivering one of the biggest choruses of the year.
Although clear that Arctic Monkeys are an influence, there’s also an air of Pixies about the band’s sound. The expert use of melodic crescendos that the Boston rockers pioneered in the late ’80s makes a welcome return through The Snuts, just aching to be sung along to at festivals.
Later tracks Maybe California and Juan Belmonte follow suit, built around a mixture of remarkably contemporary and retrospective sounds. The former harks back at the sun-kissed coast of the namesake state, while the latter firmly places their own stamp on the swagger of their indie counterparts.
Forming in Scotland because “there’s nothing else to do” – their words, not ours – The Snuts have become somewhat of a sensation in their home country in the past couple of years, building a reputation for their highly engaging and energetic live shows.
The band released a string of singles such as Manhatten Project, What’s Going On? and Proper, garnering over a million streams on Spotify and gaining radio support from the likes of BBC 6 Music and Radio 1.
Live is where the band really come into their own. The Snuts kicked off a packed summer with a wild set on the Ticketmaster New Music stage at The Great Escape Festival, going on to play Reading and Leeds Festivals, Isle of Wight Festival, and a monumental main stage slot at TRNSMT Festival in Glasgow.
The band performed a series of headline dates, including their biggest London gig to date at Scala, and round off the year supporting the man of the moment and fellow Scot Lewis Capaldi, and indie legends Courteeners.
The band release their new Mixtape EP on Friday 13 March 2020, including new tracks Boardwalk, Fatboy Slim and Coffee & Cigarettes alongside All Your Friends and a number of interludes and bonus tracks. The EP will be available through the band’s official website.
Time to get the white paint out King Tut’s.
Relive what happened when we caught up with The Snuts in the Ticketmaster New Music beach hut at The Great Escape Festival:
More essential tracks
Coffee & Cigarettes
Fatboy Slim
Glasgow
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For any current and future The Snuts live dates and tickets head to Ticketmaster.co.uk.
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