Review: Skiv – “No Context Bangers”

INiiT Records – 13 May 2022

A worthy debut LP from London quartet

UK punks Skiv have been banging around since around 2016, but have really ramped up their output in the last couple of years. After releasing the Wasteman EP in 2018, and Chick Chicken EP in 2021, the band has now dropped their debut LP No Context Bangers. Is the wait for a full-length worth it? Definitely.

The band’s style has continued to evolve… you know, scratch that. I wouldn’t say it is an evolution as much as a conglomeration of multiple styles that the band keeps loading up with. Rooted in punk rock, the new album exhibits a mighty broad range of musical styles throughout, often in the same song. We’ll hear slow and noisy dirges, peppy almost folk rock and, of course, a bit of good old melodic punk. While it sounds like everyone in the band (and then some) gets to shout, the core vocals belong to Jordan Harris and Conor Yates, both also on guitar, with Harris taking the lion’s share of lead vocals.

Before I comment on some of the tracks, I feel obliged to point out just how guitar-driven this album is. Skiv has always been creative with their guitars, but this album showcases just how far they’ve come in composing clever and playful melodies, often performing separately almost the entire song. This is a feature that love when bands do it right, and Skiv definitely lands it here.

The album launches with “Baloney and an Orange” which, in typical Brit fashion, the seemingly mundane title belies a song loaded with much more meaning. It starts out fast and hard, then vacillates in tempo throughout.

Skipping ahead to the third and fourth tracks, we get to a double-feature of songs that don’t rely as much on punk in lieu of some exciting and creative song-writing. “Deck You (in the Schnozz)” starts us out, and is the first song where Yates takes the lead mic. The song starts out with plodding rhythm and wall of noise guitars, before jumping into a very early Green Day-sounding chorus. People who are more informed about music recording and production can probably speak better to what is actually done to the guitar during the verses, but the bass line and drums back it up so well, and when the song breaks down a bit with guitar solos and chunky guitars it sounds more like dirty southern rock than anything else before rolling back into a pop-punk sound and a melodic punk outro.

Following up is “Skivilicious”, which is also the handle you can find the band at on their social media. This song starts out carrying some of the same qualities of the previous, but with a more light, airy, and cheery delivery. I’ve really enjoyed Harris’ vocals and delivery ever since I was introduced to his previous band DROPTHIS, and his portion of this song showcases that so well. However, 2/3 of the way through the song abruptly switches to a new vocalist (who I can’t seem to identify, and the information available doesn’t specify), whose vocal delivery is quite different than Harris’. Enough so that, in a way, it shatters the sense of reverie that the song originally invoked. It isn’t bad, but it also doesn’t really fit. If it was shorter, or shoehorned in as a bridge, maybe. It could be that it runs a bit too long. It could be that the song would circle back around, but doesn’t. Either way while the first part of the song works extremely well, the second half just doesn’t mesh as well as I would have liked.

From here the band jumps to “Thumbprint”, what is likely the most melodic punk track on the album, featuring highly-technical guitar and bass work. If anything, it cements the notion that Skiv can juggle genres deftly. “Situationship”, the longest track on the album, is another mid-tempo track and, in a way, feels like the most story-based song on the album, replete with dualing and gang vocals, and is just a fun ride to be on.

Before we get to the end I want to comment on “13 Sugarz” solely for the fact that the lyrics “Stupid birds tweeting in the morning / How could anything be so happy?” crack me up every time I hear them. The song is fun, too.

“O, Melissa!”, the penultimate track, is another punky number with a catchy chorus that, likely, is a lot catchier than it has any right to be. The album finishes off with “Talk All You Want but You better Convince Yourself First”, an acoustic ballad (?) where the slightly loose delivery of the vocals only serves to reinforce the emotion of that song. I’m typically not a fan of acoustic tracks ending an album, let’s be honest, it’s been done to death; but I don’t feel so bad about this one. In fact, I feel pretty good about it.

So where does this leave us? In the end, Skiv pretty much holds their own when delivering an LP’s worth of songs. There aren’t any bad songs on here, there are a lot of good ones, and my one hang-up from the entirety is that end part of “Skivilicious”, but that could just be me. Considering the band’s punk credibility, there is a lot on this album that is definitely not punk, but lovable nonetheless. It’s definitely worth going out of your way to stream, if not outright purchase.