British Skulls Balance The Sweet With The Sour

I have always been on the fence with Southampton, England trio Band Of Skulls. I've felt like they walk the road most travelled, or at least the one that is paved and easy to walk on, for their brand of guitar-bass-drums is so familiar that it could be any number of acts running through their stadium-dream repertoire. So I'm pretty surprised by Sweet Sour, their latest full length.

Or more rightly, confused.

For on face value the M.O. hasn't changed one iota - Russell Marsden, Emma Richardson and Matt Hayward are still spieling out the rock jam mantra like before. Yet there is something about their unabashed love of 1970's British garage rock, their adherence to more contemporary revivalists (see The White Stripes via The Kills on 'Bruises') and their flat out refusal to rock the boat that in this instance really appeals. They are incredibly tight, and their ability to switch between spacious jams, dulcet balladry and teeth-rattling venom is perfect to a tee. Hayward's drumming is the centrifugal point for this interchange, swapping precision to aggression at the drop of a pin, whilst the interweaving of Marsden and Richardson's boy/girl vocal harmonies are spot on, with Marsden in particular taking control with both his voice and axe-shredding.

As stated earlier, there is certainly nothing inherently new here, and as seen with many other acts down the line, precise mimicry doesn't impress. But Band Of Skulls are much more than a glorified cover band. They are silky, seductive rock machine, and Sweet Sour is the perfect follow up to show that they aren't here with the also-rans - there is much more in the tank.


Sweet Sour is out through Vagrant - grab it here.

Band Of Skulls - Sweet Sour
Band Of Skulls - You're Not Pretty But You Got It Goin' On

Abbe May - Nay, WILL - Design Our Desire

Amongst the long list of bullet points that constitutes my loves, there's one at the top that burns like a beacon - I love me a good woman. Its just who I am - Im only human(ish).

But there is a definitive post script to this love of mine, for what I really love is a female that rocks. But not just rocks (attractive girls in bands aren't enough; my well documented disdain for the Dum Dum Girls should have signposted that...), but really really rocks - can wail on their instruments, rip the balls out of a vocal and sell the whole deal to the Devil with change to spare.

Abbe May is that kind of female.

Design Desire is the West Australian's third album, and whilst it still doesn't harness the power (let alone the sexiness) that May exudes exponentially in the live arena, it certainly should help sell her case that she is one of the most unique rock singer/songwriters in the country, and deserved of wider acclaim across the globe. 'Mammalian Locomotion' and 'Design Desire', the first two singles from Abbe's third album, indicate a new direction; showcasing heavy, scaling riffs and seductively ethereal vocals. May is an intense and primal live performer, capable of slaying an audience with her electric guitar and then stripping it back to a disarmingly intimate delivery. Design Desire itself offers simultaneously heavy and delicately beautiful sonics, the yin and the yang of the enigma that is Abbe May. There are rock influences everywhere, if you want that sort of thing - Polly Jean, Alison Mosshart, even Josh Homme in the grooves underpinning 'Universes'. But she is very much her own woman, and cuts an imposing musical presence that needs to be experienced.

And goddamn she can play the guitar...

Design Desire is out today on Source Music/MGM.

Abbe May - Design Desire
Abbe May - Mammalian Locomotion

Separating The Blues Brothers At Birth

No, I wouldn't do that to you! But what I will do, is give you a taste of The Owsley Brothers new album, Separated At Birth. We posted about the Florida blueshounds here, but a bit has changed since then - namely that JE Reynolds' wife has left the band (but not him), to be replaced by "Young Ricky", who plays drums and banjo. And as you can hear below, the new duo is just as blustery as the old duo. This is a solid blues dirge of a record, harnessing the likes of early Kills, a bit of White Stripes, a bit of Six Ft Hick - it feels dirty, but oh so gooood! Put this on, swig whiskey from the bottle and start gyrating in the dirty bar down past the boonies - and damn if it wont suit you to a T...

What's more, you can get Separated At Birth for free over at Last.fm! So go get it!

The Owsley Brothers - Under The Shade Of A Live Oak
The Owsley Brothers - We Are Wolves

Blood Pressure Will Kill You Dead

Perennial swampy sleazy bluesers The Kills have come at us in 2011 with another album, Blood Pressures. 'Future Starts Slow' is the perfect opener and indicator that despite the various goings-ons in the dynamic duo's life outside the band, that when Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart lock horns, dirty magic happens. Its brooding beauty only hints at what's in store though, for when 'Satellite' comes out at you it will lure you in and do all sorts of depraved lustful things to you, with or without your consent. It is possibly the best number the band have put down yet, and clearly demonstrates both Mosshart's journey with Jack White as The Dead Weather and Hince's disturbing audacity at warping particular blues tropes. There is slinkiness in tracks such as 'Nail In My Coffin' and 'You Don't Own The Road' that comes from their expansion of sound denoted in last album Midnight Boom, whilst 'DNA' and 'Baby Says' delves even further back into their oeuvre, yet never going back into the muck that highlighted first release Keep On your Mean Side. However it is the softer centre of things that really evokes the new maturity of this demonic duo - 'Wild Charms' and 'The Last Goodbye' offering simple arrangements and naked vocal accoutrements from both of these anti-heroes.

There seems to be a lot of haters on this record recently - but dont read into that. Blood Pressures is the best thing The Kills have done yet, and they are deserved of any and all praise, adulation and idolatry that their wicked charms enamours out of us.


Blood Pressures is out now through Domino Records.

The Kills - Satellite