Following a year of pretty much non-stop touring, multiple festival appearances and many many pizzas, New York/Hull based quartet Skaters released their debut full length effort, Manhattan, dedicated to the big apple itself. The sound of the LP and Skaters in general is reminiscent of The Strokes circa the 'Is This It' era, and a shared hometown of NYC makes the likeliness of the two groups almost uncanny.
The album kicks of with 'One Of Us', a rumbling jagged opener which sets the tone for the rest of the LP, 'Let's get stoned' growls frontman Michael Cummings as the opener closes. Next is recent single 'Miss Teen Massachusetts' which is supposedly about stalking a girl. 'I guess I'll never change your mind' wails Cummings as the throng of sharp guitar riffs echo behind him during the song's epic chorus. 'Deadbolt' is next, a single the band released last November and rightly so, this song sits as one of the best on the record. An initial snide opening verse explodes into a loud shouted chorus as the instrumentals almost take over.
The rest of the album plays on the same strings, only varying slightly at points, on unfortunately, the albums weaker songs. 'Band Breaker' with it's slower instrumentals offers a different side to Skaters, but a less preferable one. 'Nice Hat' is the complete opposite, perhaps Skaters trying to go a bit TOO frantic, it ends up straying from their great original sound. One of Skaters' earliest songs, 'Schemers' appears, remastered and re-recorded, sounding fresh as flowers, with a great foot-tappable chorus. Likely to be their next single is 'Symptomatic' which demonstrates what Skaters do best, writing songs you can shout the chorus along to, 'I don't need them drugs when you're around me' reads the chorus, sure to be stuck in my head for weeks to come.
On a more successful slow song attempt is 'Fear Of The Knife'. Taken from their early EP, the song swoons through it's verses and chorus in which the electronic drums pulsate in the background. Also on the LP is the track that brought Skaters their initial fame, the mighty 'I Wanna Dance (But I Don't Know How)'. The groovy opening bassline explodes (and I mean explodes) into Cummings shouting his desire to dance but his lack of knowledge on the topic. Album closer 'This Much I Care' is a brilliantly crafted 3 minutes of shoulder shaking guitars as the lead singer confesses that he only wants a lass for her money.
Throughout the LP Skaters embed voice clips from around New York. Whether this be the chatter of the subways or a conversation with a seemingly drunk cabbie, it adds a layer of depth to the album, a real connection with the 'NYC' New York. All in all, Skaters are clearly capable of producing excellent songs when doing what they do best, but show they might (MIGHT) struggle on expanding on that. But for a debut album, where they're free to pander to the same genre for the entirety of the collection, I feel it's a bloody good effort.
8/10
Written by @charlieforbesya
Buy Manhattan here: Physical (CD/LP) OR iTunes
Find em on Facebook: /skatersnyc
and Twitter: @skatersnyc
Or stream the entire album below:
No comments:
Post a Comment