Russell HughesBand of Skulls – Love Is All You Love (So Recordings)
Love may be all that you love, but what happens when you don’t absolutely love the new Band of Skulls album?
Ever since Baby Darling Doll Face Honey, Band of Skulls have been so engaging to listen to because they write such a wide variety of songs – but it’s always been underpinned with pure, guitar driven rock ‘n roll that has such a groove it’s impossible to ignore.
Band of Skulls might not write the biggest riffs, but they’re an example of how you don’t always have to be the loudest in the room to create the most noise – or the best noise.
But this album… it just struggles to find that. There’s a nice funk beat on Gold, a bit of a chorus you can follow on Love Is All You Love – but there’s nothing that made old Band of Skulls so special.
There’s no You Ain’t Pretty But You Got It Goin On beat that makes you want to tap your foot until it falls off, or the brilliance of Hoochie Coochie.
It threatens to go off on Not The Kind of Nothing, with it’s fuzzy hooks and back and forth signing. It’s the best song on the album and to be fair to the band, it’s instantly engaging and worthy of a place in their best of CDs. That’s My Trouble provides some hope towards the end of the album, but the problem is Love Is All You Love is that there’s too much filler. Not much nice music, with a nice beat and nice lyrics.
Honestly that’s heartbreaking. When they’re on song Band of Skulls create the most engaging, brilliant and inspiring music. There’s nothing that wrong with this album, but there’s not a lot that clearly and effortlessly right.
Love Is All You Love? Unfortunately, not this.