Skinner Group - Back on the Horse

  by John Clarkson

published: 23 / 3 / 2014

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Review

Grahame "Skin" Skinner was the front man in Hipsway, who had a Top Twenty hit in both the UK and the United States with 'The Honeythief' in 1986. While a self-titled debut album which came out on Mercury Records in the same year also sold moderately well, Hipsway, who were from Glasgow, were unable to build on this early success. They suffered from both management and line-up changes, and fell victim to record company politics. By the time a long-delayed second album 'Scratch the Surface' finally emerged in 1989, Hipsway had already broken up. "Skin" went on to front various other bands including the much under-rated Cowboy Mouth, who recorded two albums, 'Life as a Dog' (1994) and 'Love is Dead' (1995) for the small German label Marina. After a long sabbatical, he formed Skinner (now the Skinner Group) in 2010, a band with a rotating line-up whose other members include guitarist Douglas MacIntyre (Cowboy Mouth, Love and Money, Sugartown), drummer Gordon Wilson (Cowboy Mouth, Love and Money) and keyboardist Andy Alston (Del Amitri). Now "Skin" has returned with his first album in nineteen years of new material, 'Back on the Horse', which is being released initially digitally before a CD edition will follow later on this year. 'Back on the Horse' comprises of elements of both Hipsway and Cowboy Mouth, the blistering white soul/funk of the former, and the brooding, stark melancholy of the latter project. ‘Surfer Girl’, the opening track, which was originally planned for an aborted third Cowboy Mouth album, paves the way for a lot of what is to come with a honeyed, baritone vocal from Skinner, rich guitar work from MacIntyre and haunting atmospherics. A slow, dreamy number, built around a soft, rippling guitar and shimmering drums, Skinner’s tale of unrequited love and heartbreak is typically matter-of-fact and straight-to-the-point (“You denied me just one kiss/Tell me how can someone miss something they never had?”). It is music in which every note is made to count, and classic songwriting of the highest order. Also in the vein of Cowboy Mouth is ‘Bacharach, You Gave Me Love’, a smoky lounge jazz number in which Skinner is led out of depression by a new love’s gift of a Burt Bacharach record. On the crooned ‘Still Messed Up With You’, he throws himself into the routine of doing household tasks in the hope of obliterating the pain of being jilted, but it is all hopelessly. “I am just a mess/Messed up with you/I am just no good/No good without you,” he sings in bittersweet conclusion. ‘Down on My Knees’ is the closest throwback to the Hipsway era. All scorched guitars and snappy backing harmonies (“I’ll break these chains that are shackling me/I can’t keep going down on my knees”), it closes in a rush of guitar feedback. On ‘Seven Stages of Losing You’, a soul rock number, Skinner confesses at its beginning, “I was bereft when you left/I couldn’t believe that you were gone.” By its end he is resigned to the break-up and wearily acceptive of the fact that his girlfriend has gone – “I would take it back but you’re not coming so I am moving on.” Best of all in what is a first-rate record is the seven-minute pivotal track, ‘Hole in My Soul’. It starts slowly, guitars and keyboards eerily merging, as Skinner reflects on another broken romance. “There is a hole in my soul/I am holding it open,” he sings wistfully, hoping for his lover’s return, and then as the music sears upwards, and then away again, and then upwards again, he later adds over and over, “I am waiting for you to come back to me.” In the final moments of the song, the music drops away again, and in a spoken word vocal and the kind of soliloquy and rambling monologue reminiscent of Aidan Moffat from Arab Strap, Skinner, his Glaswegian accent heavy, murmurs, “Waiting for something to happen/Waiting for you to come back/That will never happen.” At that moment one realises that his girlfriend is never going to return, that it has all been until now drunken romanticised thinking. The effect is as genuinely shocking as it is heartbreaking. ‘Back on the Horse’ is an enthralling experience, and it is for Grahame Skinner a splendid return.

Track Listing:-

1 Surfer Gurl
2 Oh Dear
3 Down On My Knees
4 Something Cinematic
5 Bacharach, You Gave Me Love
6 Who's That Man?
7 Hole In My Soul
8 Seven Stages
9 Still Messed Up With You
10 Back On the Horse

Band Links:-

http://www.grahameskinner.com/
https://www.facebook.com/skinnercollec