Skeleton Coast is the latest in a long line of bands that make me extremely giddy and want to clap my hands and smile and talk about them. Recent examples have included Sinaloa and Rockets and Blue Lights. Now we have this bunch of five kids from Portland, Oregon making an absolutely delightful melodic racket. A few of them had previous experience in a fun little band called the Snacks (who shared a piece of vinyl with the excellent Tipping Canoe on Jealous Butcher records, I understand this is still in press, snap it up), and that has stood them in good stead for this seven-song EP. The songs average around two minutes each, but they cram so much in, utilising multiple sung / screamed vocals that cross many styles. Sometimes they have a boy singing and holding the notes in a strained way like Mag in Yaphet Kotto, sometimes one of the girls sings strongly, sometimes they break out the harsh yells – mostly they do two or three of these at once, and it’s incredibly effective. The guitars blend vaguely mathy time-changes with a melodic Mid-West style, I guess there is a touch of something like Braid in there somewhere. The emo third song, ‘Crossing MLK’, is absolutely incredible, squeezing the dynamics of Republic of Freedom Fighters into a shorter space of time, the yelled spoken parts particularly are stunning. The final two songs, ‘Strike Anywhere’ and ‘Kill The Light’ are indie-emo masterpieces, the former is a straight-forward bouncy song with a perfect guitar sound and nice changes of pace, whilst the latter is a gentler and prettier song which oozes the Mid West and rocks out in the finale with dual boy-girl vocals singing and hollering. Ace.
The band they make me think mostly of is the exceptional Lovesick – they are not exactly musically similar, but there I get the same feeling of spirit and excitement from listening to the poppy tunes, the exuberance is there. This stuff just feels right, it feels good and I love to listen to it. Skeleton Coast have put together a wonderful CD and I really rather recommend that you check them out if you enjoy this style of music.