Sometimes the music world can be a cruel Mistress. I have only just discovered New York based band Slush thanks to their awesome new album Lizard Skins. The sad thing is though this will also be their last album as the band have decided to change-up their sound and become Hot Knives. Still the good thing is though that Lizard Skins is the grand finale that this creative group deserve.
The band have called this a snapshot of their career and as you take a listen to the album you can hear the various twists and turns they have taken during their career. The album kicks with the energetic opening of ‘Graveyard,’ a track that ends up meandering itself through a number of tempos but also genuinely showing the skills of a band that everybody needs to know about.
‘Golden Seam’ kicks off with a drum solo from Tom Barnes before turning into bluesy Danzig style track that sounds like it was recorded during an epic jam session. The album then takes another turn with the acoustic title track that you can’t help singing along to before delving into the slowed down and haunting ‘Skeleton Queen.’
There is a dark tone that bubbles away for most of this album, it is even present on the energetic ‘Megalodon’ which sounds like it was recorded during a late night gig and it certainly comes to the fore with dark blues vibe of ‘On The Silver Globe’ which reaches a fever pitch finale that sees out the career of Slush.
Lizard Skins is a worthy curtain call for Slush. It is the kind of album that you listen to and realise that you have missed a great party over the years, so good that now I am going back to try and find all of Slush’s past recordings.
