“To find a better place and time, to gain a different frame of mind.”
The Skeats – The Skeats IV December 2nd, 2023 Hard Rock/ Alternative Rock / Punk Rock Independently Released St. John’s, Newfoundland
St. John’s hard rock power trio The Skeats are back with their fourth full length album in as many years, and, unsurprisingly, they’ve released yet another banger of catchy, well written tunes that will no doubt get stuck in your earholes and refuse to leave for days afterwards. Having reviewed the band’s past three full length records I’m well acquainted with their style of music, and it’s been an interesting journey watching these guys mature as songwriters while also maintaining a surprising level of consistency throughout their discography.
This album is, to some degree, not quite as heavy as the band’s previous record, Dead Before Dawn, which made overtures to classic heavy metal moreso than the punk-orientation of their first two releases, In the Meantime and Bulletproof… by Midnight. Still the sounds here, while certainly accessible and decidedly “easy listening” for someone who might be more into pure metal or pure punk, pack a punch and provide a sensible amount of variety for listeners all across the spectrum of the modern rock landscape.
A song like “Torch”, which was released ahead of the album, has a Billy Talent vibe to it, a band that each of the three members have pointed to as an influence before. The following track, “Daze”, is a bit softer, and feels like it hearkens back to the world of 90’s radio rock, whereas “Black Sensations” has a shit-kicking metal n’ punk attitude that reminds me of a band like Kvelertak or Priestess at points (minus the blackened vocal stylings of the former).
This album easily has the best vocal performances from both James Keats and Joshua Organ yet. James, who is the band’s lead singer, has only gotten better at singing with age. I love the moments where his vocals are layered, both over his own as well as over Organ’s, creating a chorus effect that enhances the anthemic vibe that most of these tracks possess. Organ’s harsh screams have also improved, and he is much more present on this record than any of the band’s past materials. It’s cool to see both vocalists get their moments in the sun.
The riffs, provided once again by Keats on the guitar and Organ on the bass, are widely varied, catchy, heavily melodic, and well written. There are so many great moments where the band’s riffs and vocals harmonize, like on the track “Stay Home”, that just feel so damn good to listen to. On top of that the guitar soloing, unsurprisingly, is off the charts. Keats has always been a ripper on the axe ever since I’ve known him, and the solos on here are easily some of the best he’s ever written. I also love the brief moments of acoustic flourishes added to the soundscape, like on “Chasing Angels”.
Drummer Daniel Keats has also obviously improved as a drummer over the years. While the music of The Skeats has never been overly complicated and is rather simplistic from a compositional standpoint, Daniel’s skills have been honed over the past near-decade that the group has been active, and his drumming on this album feels more confident and intentional than at any point in the band’s history.
Where this album loses me a little bit is in its runtime. Clocking in at just under 56 minutes in length this thing is a long slog to get through. This isn’t to say that the album has any filler material or “bad songs” on it. There aren’t really any tracks on here that I don’t vibe with personally. However I think for a record in the hard rock genre that boasts a punk attitude the band would’ve been better off caching some of these songs and utilizing them for an EP or another album down the road. I’d much rather have a roughly 30-40 minute release featuring the strongest songs in a “get-in-get-out” format.
Still, some of my personal favourites on this record come right at the very end of the album’s runtime. The track “Twitch” is a catchy punk rock ditty that feels like it came right out of the 90’s or early 2000’s skate punk explosion. The track “One Makes Five” is easily my favourite song that The Skeats have ever written, featuring some straight up NWOTHM riffs that feel heavily inspired by bands like Van Halen, Ratt and Cauldron. “Chasing Angels” has some of the heaviest riffs on the record as well, featuring some surprise moments of syncopation. It’s rare that an album produces my favourite songs right at the end, but The Skeats IV did exactly that.
The Skeats have outdone themselves yet again with another excellent record that mixes elements of radio rock, punk and heavy metal together in an easy to digest, accessible, and yet vibrantly catchy and energetic mixture. While the runtime is a bit of a downer, the songs are at least quite maturely written and exemplary of a band that is only going to get better with more time and experience than the past nine years have already afforded them.
St. John’s hard rock / heavy metal musician Amer Ali has released his latest in a string of singles. The new track, entitled “Forever”, features Ali on guitars and vocals and guest features Michael Small of Jaded Truth and Bog Rot on drums and Joshua Organ of The Skeats on bass. The single was also produced by Small, and was released on July 17th, 2023.
You can listen to “Forever” through our YouTube embed below.
“I see you working all day, I cash it all in today. At once we’re locked in today, and you’re not worth the net pay.”
The Skeats – Dead Before Dawn January 1st, 2022 Hard Rock Independently Released St. John’s, Newfoundland
The Skeats have certainly changed a fair bit over the course of their career. The band initially started out as a 70’s and 80’s punk-influenced group until a lineup change saw them lose their bassist and frontman Nicholas Saunders, leading to a significant change in sound when guitarist James Keats took over the role of singer and the band recruited Joshua Organ on bass. Now the band is on album number three, Dead Before Dawn, and those old punk rock influences are seemingly completely absent. The group is now firmly planted in the genre of hard rock, with some moments that veer into the territory of heavy metal as well as grunge and even prog rock.
Dead Before Dawn opens with an interesting intro track on “Zero Hour”, which has a very grunge-heavy vibe to the soft guitars and sublime bass. Complimenting these instruments we get some neat little runs on the piano, a first for The Skeats. It’s a small touch but makes the whole song pop a bit more than it otherwise might were those little additions absent.
From there we head into the title track, which bombastically explodes with some awesome drumming from percussionist Daniel Keats and solid guitar riffs from James. Surprisingly, the opening vocal lines here come from Organ, who also did backup vocals on the band’s previous record. He has a real gritty and powerful scream that reminds me of the backing vocals from Ian D’Sa of Billy Talent, a band that has no doubt greatly influenced the sound of The Skeats on this record as well as past efforts by them. He belts out some of the lines during the verse before James takes over in the chorus, and it makes for a nice juxtaposition going through each part of the song.
“Dead Before Dawn” does a good job at setting up the listener for what to expect on the rest of the album. While the band isn’t exactly attempting anything new for the hard rock genre, they know what they’re doing and they’re doing what they love. This album is full of mostly simple but very well written rock tunes, such as “Lights”, “Best Days (In Disguise)”, and “Wake Up (Don’t Hate Me)”. These all sound kind of ‘dated’ in a way, but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily bad. More than anything they sound like the kind of hard rock music that would have played on the radio back in the early to mid-2000’s, but considering where these guys’ influences lie, that’s not all that surprising.
There’s no trouble telling what bands have influenced the band’s sound. The aforementioned Billy Talent may in fact have had the most influence on these guys with this new album. Riffs like the opener on “Best Days (In Disguise)” sound so heavily influenced by Billy Talent that I could easily see it just being a rework of an existing riff by that band. Besides that the band is also very influenced by Avenged Sevenfold, something which I think surfaces on the intro track “Zero Hour” with the addition of pianos to the instrumental as well as the melancholy atmosphere and unconventional chord progression of “Once or Twice”. There’s also the Iron Maiden-esque speed metal cut “Pale Horse” near the end of the record’s tracklist that stands out a lot for me. I also think it’s worth mentioning that “Poor Man’s Toll”, which is probably my favourite cut on this album, sounds a hell of a lot like a certain Primus song, at least in the groove.
Speaking of which, there is a lot of variety on this album. While some songs like “Once or Twice” are quieter and not as bombastic as other cuts, other tracks like “Dead Before Dawn” and “Lights” are very loud, in-your-face barn burners. Meanwhile there are some minor progressive rock tendencies on certain tracks, especially on “Once or Twice” and “The Fight”, but also on “Poor Man’s Toll”. There’s a lot of different sounds going on on this record, but the band still manages to make every song sound cohesive, and like it’s the same band playing them. I never feel like this is one band trying to sound like another band. They take the previously mentioned influences and make them their own.
I do feel like the album sags a bit in the middle, with cuts like “Place and Time” and “Once or Twice” that, while not necessarily bad songs, do tend do drag on a little long for my liking. Some of these tracks near six minutes in length, if not completely eclipsing the six minute mark, which isn’t what I really want when I’m listening to music of this nature. I’m used to hearing long songs thanks to genres like progressive rock and atmospheric black metal, but I feel like some of the songs on this record could have benefited from having the fat trimmed just a little.
Performance-wise though these guys are absolutely on top of their game, at least instrumentally speaking. The guitars are tight and precise, and there’s no doubting James’ skill at the axe, especially when almost every song on here has a ripping guitar solo that adds a lot of emotion to each cut. Daniel isn’t exactly doing anything mindblowing since hard rock drum work does’t typically require a lot of intense stuff like blast beats or long double bass passages, but I often say it can be harder to play simple drum beats because when you muck it up, everyone notices. On this album he is a solid backbone to the band, and he adds his own flavour to things when given the opportunity. I noticed a lot of snare rolls with more emphasis on the threes, which I feel isn’t a trope you hear much these days. He also does a solid job with the double bass triplets on “Poor Man’s Toll”. Meanwhile Organ has a ton of stuff going on in the background here. I’d go so far as to say his bass work may be the soul of this band’s work because almost every song has some seriously gnarly fills going on behind everything else.
While hard rock isn’t typically my genre of choice, I can definitely appreciate what The Skeats are going for here. Out of their entire discography thus far, this is by far their best record yet. I enjoyed this one more than Bulletproof… by Midnight, and a hell of a lot more than In the Meantime. If the band continues down this path with this same lineup and same vision for their sound then I think they’re going to continue to drop great albums that will likely end up getting them even more attention than they’ve already cultivated.
Final Verdict:8/10 Great
Favourite Tracks: “Dead Before Dawn” “Lights” “Poor Man’s Toll” “The Fight” “Pale Horse”
Well another year has come and gone and what can I say except that I am thoroughly impressed, flabbergasted and bamboozled at the amount of quality heavy music that was released in 2019 that came from our humble little island. The scene is expanding, and while that makes our job a tad more difficult in some respects, I couldn’t be happier. Making this list of the best records to come out of the province in 2019 was a lot more difficult than I was expecting, but all that means is that our home is exploding with talent, and hopefully the rest of the country will start waking up and taking notice.
But enough preamble, let’s get into this!
10. Birnsi – Disappear
Emerging as one of a small selection of heavier albums released in Record Production Month 2019, Disappear is the debut album from solo multi-instrumentalist Birnsi. The progressive metalcore sound of this release is unique in the St. John’s area, where the only bands doing this style either suffer from lower production quality, are either not very proggy at all, or went completely defunct years ago. In fact the only other band I can think of that is doing something like this is Aeria.
Birnsi’s sound is easily comparable to fellow internet multi-instrumentalist Canapplejack or to even to post metal bands like Toundra. The atmosphere is laid on thick on here, with emotive chords and minimalist melodies striking through the rest of the instrumentation. Pianos and synth-strings clash with technical acoustic guitar strumming and mathcore-style distortion, along with the occasional djenty passage. On top of that the drumming on this thing is on fucking point. If you like bands like TesseracT, Cloudkicker or other ‘ambidjent’ artists this thing is definitely going to be up your alley.
09. Bad Milk – Spitt
Bad Milk first erupted onto the St. John’s scene with their 2016 self-titled EP which I absolutely adored, but I felt was a bit too short to satisfy my craving for grungy, grimy sludge metal and stoner rock. Thankfully my prayers were answered as Matt Wall, Alex Pierson and Ashton Whitt came through with a full length offering of down-n-dirty riffing. With eleven songs of straight up balls-to-the-wall energy these guys did not pull any punches.
Compared to the likes of other local bands like Sinews, Puce and Geinus, Bad Milk fit right in with their brand of ooze-drenched grit. The drums punch you in the face. The bass crushes you. The guitars scream in your ear drums, and the vocals flay your skin from the bone. If you like bands like the Melvins or early, pre-Nevermind Nirvana, this is an album for you.
08. The Skeats – Bulletproof… by Midnight
Glovertowners-turned-Fogtowners James and Daniel Keats had a bit of a rough go a few years ago when they lost their bassist and vocalist Nicholas Saunders. But upon replacing him with new bassist and riff-writer extraordinaire Joshua Organ the group got right back into the thick of things and started work on their sophomore record, Bulletproof… by Midnight. With a few dots added to the title to give themselves a bit of a Megadeth-esque flair you can tell this album is going to be a bit more aggressive than their previous effort.
Leaving some of their punk rock roots behind the band ventures into a sound more influenced by hard rock and heavy metal to a point where it could be considered an amalgam of 90’s punk with modern radio rock. The riffs on this album are huge, the eldest of the Keats brothers sounds even more confident with his vocal performances, and the songwriting by and large is just damned good. Check this out if you like bands like Green Day, Billy Talent and Avenged Sevenfold.
07. Chain of Lynx – MMXIX
While Chain of Lynx initially started as a project between two friends who wanted to write and record singles to be released whenever they felt like it, focusing more on individual tracks than full albums, the group eventually succumbed to the full length desire and produced an entire ten track record for Record Production Month 2019, and the end result is fantastic.
With a sound combining elements from stoner rock with straight up hard rock to grunge and other elements from adjacent genres, MMXIX is a no-holds barred steamroller from beginning to end. The riffs on here are massive, the vocal melodies are catchy as hell, and the production is tight but not too tight. It’s got the perfect level of grime that a sun-baked desert rock-esque album need. If you love Queens of the Stone Age and other bands of that ilk, give this a listen.
06. Endrot – Planned Obsolescence
Endrot, one of multiple projects by multi-instrumentalist Mike Taylor, first came about during Record Production Month of 2018 with his debut album Killer Chainsaw Robot from Beyond! While that album was awesome in its own right, it’s the album that followed that that really captured my attention.
Planned Obsolescence is an ode to the grindcore-meets-melodic death metal of Carcass, played through an HM-2 heavy metal distortion pedal, that’s over as soon as it starts. Taylor pulls no punches on this thing, delivering stone cold solid riff after stone cold solid riff, bashing you in the face with it’s heaviness, speed and aggressiveness in about 15 minutes. There isn’t a single song on here that hits the two minute mark. It’s just twelve short tracks of pulverizing grind that ended up becoming one of my favourite local records of the year.
05. Yes, Officer – Lessons from a Snake Oil Salesman
Yes, Officer really took the St. John’s scene by storm in the last few months of 2019. On top of releasing his second album, Lessons from a Snake Oil Salesman, as part of Record Production Month 2019, solo musician Jeremy Harnum enlisted a backing band of fellow rockers to bring his vision to the stage and did a small run of (really awesome) t-shirts.
But none of those things should eclipse the fact that Lessons from a Snake Oil Salesman is a killer record, combining elements of post hardcore with grunge and alternative rock and even a little sludgey metalcore in there for good measure, it’s an eclectic mixture of sounds that help make the project stand out in the local scene. It’s hard to really find a band to compare Yes, Officer to, but if you dig any of those above mentioned genres then this album is definitely for you.
04. Dark Era – Dark Era II
What can I say about my (personal) favourite band in the local scene, other than that they surprised the hell out of me when they came out of nowhere with a full length sophomore album, with absolutely no warning, no promotion, and only two months after the release of their previous 9-minute long single “Nightscapes”. I haven’t even had a chance to review Dark Era II yet, but after multiple listens I can tell you that this record is worth your time.
The blackened crust punk of Dark Era is just as good on here as it was on their debut record from way back in 2016. The atmospheric guitars are back alongside the heavy, punishing drums and Mel’s unmistakable, pissed off punk yelling. Dark Era II surprised me not only in it’s sudden release, but also by being just as good if not better than the music the band has released in the past. Definitely check this out if you’re into bands like Amebix, Young and in the Way or Gallhammer.
03. The Tangerine Machine – Forward From Here
Gander-born shredding maestro Evan Foote has had a rough go in the last few years. Following the loss of his father a couple of years ago he found himself kicking it into high gear to write and record a full length album, with many of the lyrics dealing with that family tragedy and the aftermath of trying to push forward and move on, hence the album’s title Forward From Here. Joined by a group of highly capable musicians, The Tangerine Machine was born, and they did not disappoint.
This record blew me away not only with how good the songwriting is, and how well produced it is for a local record, but it also blew me away when it comes to the style. Having known Evan personally for years I expected something much more shreddy, much more djenty and much more melodic in the vein of Scar Symmetry. But instead what I got was something that I could best describe as “progressive grunge”. Evan’s crooning voice singing over these groovy-as-hell riffs was a total surprise, but a welcome one. If you want to know what the offspring of Rush and Alice in Chains would sound like, check this out!
02. Allagash – Cryptic Visions
It’s no secret that I am a massive fan of Allagash. Aside from Dark Era they are easily one of my favourite local bands. This is due in no small part to the superb riff-writing and songwriting skills of band mastermind Trevor Leonard. I still remember the first time I heard the band’s debut album and getting tingles in my spine when the introductory riff to “Fourth Kind” kicked in. As such I was beyond stoked to hear the band’s follow up to that record, 2019’s Cryptic Visions.
While I don’t think Cryptic Visions reaches those exact same heights of catchiness and memorability as the band’s self-titled debut, it is still without a doubt one of the best local records to come out in 2019. Leonard’s savage guitar playing on here is still rooted in that old school 80’s speed metal style, couple with a bit of thrash here and there and an ever so tiny smattering of black metal. Vocalist Regan Ryan’s signature thrashy yell is in full force on here while Jon Singleton absolutely kills it on the drums. When it comes to the New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal, Allagash deserve to be in its highest echelons.
02. Jim Jones and the Kool-Aid Jammers – Instant Cult Classic
I wasn’t always a fan of punk rock. I’ll get that out of the way right now. I’ve been turned onto it more and more in the last few years, thanks in no small part to a punk rock girlfriend, but also thanks to the debut record from the best-named local band, Jim Jones and the Kool-Aid Jammers. The band’s self-titled album was an earworm-infested, acid-infused joyride of banger after banger, and as such I was excited to hear what the group would do next.
Thankfully, Instant Cult Classic is as good as it’s title would suggest. I honestly didn’t expect it but the band surpassed the heights they achieved on their debut. Eschewed some of the surf punk influences in favour of a bit more of the hardcore side of things, Jim Jones produced a second record full of heavy hitters. The obvious band for comparison would be the Dead Kennedys, but imagine the Dead Kennedy’s with modern production quality and this record is what you get. Highly recommended.
01. Sons of an Eastern Moon – L’Anse Aux Metals
Perhaps the most exciting new band from Newfoundland is St. John’s folk metal outfit Sons of an Eastern Moon. Given the ancient Viking history of Newfoundland and the small but growing neopagan and witch community in St. John’s it’s honestly surprising that more bands haven’t emerged adopting the style of European bands like Amon Amarth or Eluveitie, yet here we are. Sons of an Eastern Moon went all in on this record and it comes across as a genuine love letter to both the folk metal genre and Viking history in general.
The guitar duo of Cory Fagan and John Roach do an expert job of crafting brilliant, memorable riffs that are still stuck in my head months and months after the initial listen. While many listeners have contentions with the vocal style of band frontman Kris “Thor Odinson” Ross, his high pitched, crazed-berserker screams remind me of defunct Vancouver power thrashers 3 Inches of Blood and I think it fits perfectly, may the naysayers be damned. If you like any of those above mentioned bands then I think you’ll dig this record. I know I did. That’s why it’s at the top of this list.
HeavyNFLD 