In case the curious rookie listener, who hasn’t been exposed to this trio before, is wondering: Band Of Skulls don’t create plastic pop tunes.
So turn back, now, if that is what’s desired, for in no uncertain terms do this band make anything close to an apology for their take on the type of rock music that has been made since The Kinks‘ guitar hero, Dave Davis, slashed the cone in his guitar amp with a razor blade in pursuit of a darker sound – inadvertently inventing heavy metal in the process.
Not that they exactly forge a sonic maelstrom akin to the industrial noise havoc of Alec Empire compadres Panic Drives Human Herds, but they still reap a mighty whirlwind that could be sighted as making distinctive nods towards artists such as The Black Keys, Queens Of The Stone Age and old illuminates Mark Bolan and T-Rex. Now they unleash the aptly titled ‘Himalayan‘ with enough time to galvanise an impact on the psyche before doing battle on the festival circuit this coming summer.
‘Asleep At The Wheel‘ is the cracking starting pistol that sets the whole thing off – a track of enduring, hammering guitar and bass under-shelled by continuous ruptures of drum fractures over which the closely mixed vocals of Russell Marsden and bassist Emma Richardson glide all seeded, in the last third, with shuddering loops of guitar that never quite become all out solos but tease-tease-tease that they will, treading the war path to anthemic territory similar, sans electronic glitch effects, to old noughties band The Music.
The title track almost sounds like a souped up rock reconstruction of Prince‘s ‘Alphabet Street‘ but devoid of the smutty funk that Mr Rogers Nelson has always been pretty fond of buttering a number of his tunes with, while ‘Hoochie Coochie‘ is undoubtedly one of the most catchy tunes on the record, guaranteed to get caught in the skull like a piece of molten chewing gum on the sole of a cold shoe. The vocals splash themselves with the splendour of a pantomime villain over a sturdy triple assault of kick-out-the-jams guitar and bass and an excitable drumming pattern which sounds like the ghost of John Bonham has entered the sound scape for a minute or two.
‘Cold Sweat‘ is pure lovelorn epic-ness stained in whiskey heartbreak, where Emma Richardson’s lone vocals paint triumphantly sultry laments, seemingly flooded in a longing Patti Smith/P.J Harvey plume of viperous guitar squiggles unfolding slowly over the rest of the instrumentation in a way that is a suitably poised contrast to the rampant, slightly menacing tempest of ‘Hoochie Coochie’.
‘Heaven’s Key‘ sounds a little like Joy Division if they had come straight outta Southern California with Paul Rothchild on production duties instead of Martin ‘Zero’ Hannett; an inviting dish of close, chrispy bass and drums dripping with dotted melodic guitar sentiments over which fresh vocals hop, skip and take full flight. With ‘I Feel Like Ten Men, One Dead and Nine Dying‘ it’s as if the group has hijacked the bassline from Billy Idol‘s ‘White Wedding‘, tossed it over some warm drums and Wild West guitar figures, and sliced in influences from Muse and the synthetic cubist techno of Skrillex when writing the chorus.
‘Get Yourself Together‘ is an amazing album closer; a song that sounds like Supergrass covering the Manic Street Preachers covering Suede – or visa versa. A gentler composition in comparison to a lot of this album and instantly likable for the warm vocals and acoustic guitar, which seem a lot more wholesome and less edgy than much of the other voices across this record.
Like denim has always held a strange place in people’s wardrobes – and hearts – this kind of music will always catch the interest of quite a wide demographic; whether it be the preserve of scenesters looking to enact their post-modern romantic dreams of rock’n’roll nihilistic ambition akin to Iggy and The Stooges, or even just the heavily inebriated passer by, who happens to stumble into a gig whilst this trio are ripping one out.
Either way, it looks like this firm have cracked it.
