2011 was relatively quiet for Southampton-based blues rockers Band Of Skulls, but the rest was not without reason.
Following the launch of their critically-acclaimed 2009 debut ‘Baby Darling Doll Face Honey‘, the group spent the subsequent years seeing their stock rise rapidly, beginning with iTunes selecting ‘I Know What I Am‘ as their coveted Free Single of the Week and ending with a live album documenting their stellar performance on revered Los Angeles radio show Morning Becomes Eclectic.
All they did in between was open for the likes of Dead Weather and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, earn immeasurable exposure on a near-ubiquitous Ford Mustang commercial, and eventually find themselves slotted between Death Cab For Cutie and Thom Yorke on the chart-topping soundtrack to The Twilight Saga: New Moon.
Yet instead of just using this past year as a power-down for the previous two, it turns out that the trio also used it as a tune-up for the one around the corner. February will see the release of their anticipated follow-up ‘Sweet Sour‘, but the title track has been unveiled now as an end-of-the-calendar preview of what is still to come.
The song is centered around a crisp, almost metallic hammer-on riff that builds but never really breaks, instead just drifting in different directions before ending up almost exactly where it began. The Band Of Skulls trademarks are there along with it, from the steady thump of drummer Matt Hayward’s kick-kick-snare to the signature vocal interplay between guitarist Russell Marsden and bassist Emma Richardson.
What isn’t there is the let-it-all-hang-out laxity of their previous singles, and in this case that’s a good thing. Clocking in at just over three minutes, the entire affair is an exercise in careful repetition and subtle restraint. Marsden’s lyrics are economically catchy, and even the candlelit coo breakdown at the two minute mark and the cat-scratch guitar solo that follows soon after are both pulled in before they’re even all the way out. The whole thing is a deliberate come-on, a tease to an end that is implied yet in no way revealed.
That revelation will no doubt come with the new year, and so far it appears as if it will be worth the wait.
