ALBUM REVIEW: Skinny Lister – A Matter Of Life & Love
(Xtra Mile Recordings)
Folk-punks Skinny Lister have been blazing a trail around the UK and beyond for 12 years now, and this is their fifth studio album.
For the first time it’s a record which has been entirely written, produced, recorded and mixed by the band themselves.
So who better to capture the spirit of what they’re all about: camaraderie and companionship, and cherishing life’s simple pleasures.
Written over the past 18 months, it’s a collection of true stories and feelings, and it’s much more joyous than its predecessor, 2019’s The Story Is…
Even before Covid-19 brought the music industry to a grinding halt, 2020 was planned as a quiet year for the band due to singer Lorna Thomas’s pregnancy.
Time off the road gave the London/Hastings-based six-piece time to take stock of the things that are important, and the result is an upbeat record full of positivity.
Singalong anthem
Lead single Shout It Out, which opens the album, is an anthemic singalong of the sort they do so well, and there’s another call to arms in Shoulder To Shoulder.
Tough Stuff Like Us, driven by an urgent bassline, is about opening up and sharing feelings, even if “it’s not the done thing around these parts, to speak of matters of the heart”.
Like It’s The First Time is a poppy number which celebrates the joys of touring, and Breakfast At Heathrow is a Celtic punk-tinged tale of beginning your day with a pint.
Few bands pen a traditional sea shanty like Skinny Lister, and they excel themselves with the single Damn The Amsterdam, the true story of a Dutch cargo ship which ran aground off Hastings in 1749.
Madness-like
The album’s title track, another jaunty pop number, could belong on a Madness album, and there’s also a real ska feel to Bavaria Area, a touring tale of being pulled over by German police.
One of the highlights of any Skinny Lister album is when Lorna’s rich voice is given centre stage, and that’s the case on the ballad Embers, where she recalls none other than the late, great Kirsty MacColl.
Another standout is Bonny’s Eyes, where Dan and Lorna share the joys of becoming parents for the first time. Soppy? You bet, but most blokes of a certain age will relate when Dan sings: “I saw the world, tried to drink it dry … but nothing makes me smile, like my Bonny’s eyes.”
The nostalgia-steeped History, which brings things to a close, leaves us with a warm glow, and the feeling that Skinny Lister might just have made their best album yet. 8/10.
