Review: Skip Rock – Take It Or Leave It

Streetdog Records (2015)

Reviewer: Dan Mann

I’ll be honest and say that before this release I hadn’t actually heard of Skip Rock, a band who’ve apparently been around for more than six years.

According to the accompanying press release, this album is a change from their previous stuff. The change in question sees the band combining elements of heavy metal with country. Now before you pull a face, think southern rock with balls as a more accurate description.

Kicking off the album is the ‘Intro‘ which is quite fitting, very Cinderella ‘Bad Seamstress Blues’ meets ‘A Fist Full Of Dollars’ instantly making you think of the Wild West before the album launches into ‘Tell Me Why‘ which is a pretty decent hard rock track with hints of southern and elements of the intro sneaking in.

The tolling of a church bell leads us into ‘Death Or Glory‘ which again is a fairly straightforward hard rock track with some great grinding guitar work that got me reaching to turn up the volume.

The country element rears it’s head for ‘Jesse James‘ a track that wouldn’t be out of place on say a Medicine Hat release. Following that is ‘Outlaws‘, which continues with that country feel, but sounding a little weak compared with some of the other tracks.

No surprise with the intro to ‘Motorcycle Mann II‘ as a motorcycle (Harley) starts up and rides off, taking us into some frantic guitar work from Darius Dee. Again more southern rock with a bit more guts to it.

‘Rich N Nazty‘ brings an almost sleaze element to the sound with the vocals sounding a bit ragged at times. ‘Hell Is On Fire‘ is rather Skinny Molly in flavour but with the slightly guttural vocals of Mark Terry. Slowing back down for ‘Too Young‘ a ’round the campfire’ style ballad with some female accompaniment, all in all very enjoyable. ‘Take It Or Leave It‘ brings us back to the grinding guitar style of previous tracks. I found the vocals a little weak in some respects on this track.

Tracks eleven & twelve are live bonus tracks, the first being ‘Hit And Run‘ and the second entitled ‘Rough And Ready‘. Rough and ready would pretty much sum up these two tracks. I think a case of great if you were there but not as good when transferred to album.

To summarize, not a bad album by any means and I can see where they’re trying to go with this release. Maybe the vocals need to be a little more controlled and a little more polish to the overall package, but fairly enjoyable none the less.