The English trio Band of Skulls formed last year in Southampton, and were signed rather quickly. They now give us their debut album Baby Darling Doll Face Honey. The Skulls consist of Russell Marsden on guitar and vocals, Emma Richardson on bass and vocals, and Matthew Hayward on drums.
With seconds of pressing play, you will hear some a raw, bluesy, garage rock sound, muck like the White Stripes on the opener “Light of the Morning”. It doesn’t take long to figure out Band of Skull’s strength, which is the vocal paring of Marsden and Richardson. The two play off each other regularly and exceptionally. The best example of this is Baby Darling Doll Face Honey’s first single, ”I Know What I Am”, which has a solid sing-along, clap-along, stomp-along sound.
The one-issue, which for many of you may not even be an issue, is that this new band clearly has many influences, and the album takes many turns because of it. After the dirty rock start to the album, “Fires” begins a change in tone with its quiet/loud/quiet style that leads into a dreamy acoustic ballad “Honest”. And from there, Band of Skulls is pretty much all over the place.
The thing about Baby Darling Doll Face Honey is the songs are never bad. Band of Skulls show that they have excellent chemistry and write first-rate songs together, but if you are looking to set a mood with an album from start to finish, this isn’t it. Track for track, you are getting a little something different, and the album grows on you the more you listen to each song independently of each other. It’s an excellent debut from a band that has spent not much time together. Do they bring you anything you haven’t heard before? Not really, but they certainly show they are more than capable of going a number of ways from here.
Kevin Kozel-MuzikReviews.com Staff
August 31, 2009
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