The mischief-making duo is up to its usual tricks on this three-song, six-minute EP, but it fails to deliver the thrills of the group’s debut.
100 gecs’ brilliance lies in their ability to recontextualize established sounds through cheeky juxtapositions. In a year when blink-182 dropped their insipid ninth studio album, “stupid horse” was a miracle, like Laura Les and Dylan Brady were dictating what puckish pop-punk could sound like if filtered through the sensibilities of the terminally online; that its vocal melody felt like a riff on the California trio’s “Roller Coaster” was the cherry on top. More recently, “mememe” brought back the guitar skanks but with a Crazy Frog hook, recalling other songs rooted in the internet. (“Numa Numa” and “DotA,” anyone?) Even “Doritos & Fritos” largely benefits from sounding like a prankster’s take on the current crop of UK post-punk bands. As in the tradition of jesters, 100 gecs are expert observers of culture, treating humor as a conduit for enlightenment as much as entertainment.
Snake Eyes, a surprise three-song EP dropped in advance of their forthcoming second album, 10000 gecs, doesn’t capture the spark of 1000 gecs or anything thereafter. Not only does this release barely breach six minutes, its ideas are so bereft of creativity and nuance that it’s hard to view it as anything but a slapdash stopgap for fans awaiting their new record. Beginning with its titular declaration, “Hey Big Man” repeats a familiar formula, but it sounds far less engaging than “money machine” and its “hey you lil’ piss baby” opener. The braggadocio on the latter was surreal, heightened by a sticky hook and blistering sonics; the music here sounds like a timid retread of Brady’s 2017 material with a Sleigh Bells filter, stymieing any heft their smack-talk could have. There are four seconds of hardcore dance music about halfway through that add momentary suspense, but it’s lazily shoehorned in instead of cleverly embedded.
If 100 gecs’ appeal was contingent on shocking listeners, they’d be playing a losing game, but they’ve always had adroit songwriting to back up their mischief. Its absence is palpable on “Runaway,” a drab ballad whose soft piano melodies build into a recycled hook. Its vocal melody sounds like a lackluster version of “hand crushed by a mallet,” and misunderstands what made that song indelible. When I saw 100 gecs perform it in 2019, there was palpable catharsis as a sold-out crowd shouted “oh my god, what the fuck” in unison, bolstered by other pithy one-liners embodying current malaise (“Feel like I’m not good enough” and “I might go and throw my phone into the lake” were two other howlers). Here, Les and Brady prattle on with lyrics that are characteristic of a traditional breakup song, the only consolation being Les’ frustrated acceptance of the circumstances: “I understand/I just think it’s fucking gay!”
The grimmest signpost for 100 gecs’ future is “Torture Me,” a song whose Skrillex feature is antithetical to their shtick. When 1000 gecs & the Tree of Clues came out in 2020, its litany of guests felt like a victory lap and celebration of intersecting scenes—only 100 gecs could’ve brought them together. But to have another artist on one of their own non-remixed songs is an unnecessary shortcut to revealing the superficial nature of genre boundaries. On paper it looks bad, but in practice it’s worse: Skrillex provides his characteristic EDM wobbles, and the beat is overwhelmingly familiar and plodding. Les sounds convincingly like she’s on the verge of tears, but the song’s banalities make it feel like she’s the featured artist, not the other way around. Much of this brief, inconsequential EP repeatedly comes up short in this way, as if 100 gecs have become hucksters selling knock-offs of their wares.
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