Thickskin
Skid Row
(SPV)
Much delayed and highly anticipated, Thickskin marks Skid Row's first release since the departure of their mercurial lead singer Sabastian Bach. He has been replaced by Johnny Solinger, a more than competent vocalist. Of course, the proof is hearing Johnny live, but on Thickskin, SR have proven they are more than Bach. This is a rather good slab of 12 hard rockin' tracks. "I Remember You" from the band's awesome debut has been dusted off for a revamp. I think it was rather unnecessary, but is probably there to prove that Solinger can sing the old stuff. This is Skid Row, sure enough and they are as good as they ever were. Oddly enough one of the weakest tracks beside the 'cover', is the title track. The rest are excellent examples of hard bluesy rock, ranging from slower tracks like 'One Light' to out and out rockers like 'New Generation'. Thickskin clearly fits nicely into the pantheon of Skid Row, and while not as stunning or catchy as their debut, is equal to Slave to the Grind. One of the best hard rock releases of the year and a disc that should be huge!
Rating; 4.5/5
Article comments
1 - Nyx
Sebastian was on Gilmore Girls last week. He was auditioning for a garage band.
2 - Johno
I saw that episode (yeees, I watch Gilmore Girls). 'bas is not a too bad actor, which is good considering his second career on Broadway.
It made me go back and reconsider Skid Row's first record, which has aged pretty well. Aside from the hideous!! drum sound and Dave "the Snake" Sabo's penchant for squealy guitar harmonics, it's a far-better-than-average hair metal record. For my money "18 and Life" is one of the best songs of the late '80s.
3 - Tom Johnson
I thought he did a great job on the show. I'm curious to see how his role in the band plays out, since the other two were clearly not interested in working with someone so "old."
What was it with the drum sound in the 80s? Why did everything struck with a stick sound so awful? That common sound really dates the music more than anything else.
I actually really enjoyed their overlooked third album (I think?), Subhuman Race. It was a good deal heavier than anything they'd done before, and I think most people would be hard-pressed to name who the band was.
I'm very surprised to see Skid Row carrying on without Bach. It seems kind of pointless - his voice was the band in most people's eyes. But if they can pull it off, more power to 'em. Sounds like they did.
4 - Johno
Tom, two words: Gated Snare.
Two more words: Reverb tank.
Two more words: Shitty drummers.
Compared to the 80's, even Lars Ulrich's excrescent drum sound on the equally excrescent St. Anger sounds good.
The gated snare must have been a good idea at one time, because for a while there everyone was doing it. As for reverb and shitty drummers, they're connected. If you slap enough reverb on a drum part, it's hard to tell the drummer is to gacked to hold his sticks. Witness "Appetite for Destruction" as an example. The drum tracks on that are cobbled together out of many takes, much like the rhythm guitar on an AC/DC record. But whereas AC/DC do it to make a tight band tighter, nothing can disguise Stephen Adler's lack of skill.
Either way, the 80's is notable for bad hair and worse production.
And what REALLY cheeses me off about 80's drums is that even bands that should have known better succumbed. Listen to Agent Orange again-- "Fire In The Rain" is just a KILLER tune, but the drum sound drags the track down like a man drowning.
The 1980s were to the art of production what Stalinism was to central planning.
5 - JR
I think one of the advantages of gated snare (and gated reverb) was that it "cleaned up" the mix a bit. By not letting the drums ring out you left more room for other sounds, especially important when you were filling up the mix with distorted guitars. At least that's the theory; I never cared for noise gating myself. Didn't Peter Gabriel start that trend?
I thought Steven Adler sounded pretty good. His playing was far more entertaining than Matt Sorum's. I imagine all those guys G'n'R needed lots of takes, considering the amounts of drugs they were using.
6 - Tom Johnson
I've always wondered what gated snares were - can someone explain that, or what the process is?
7 - JR
A noise gate is a signal processor that cuts off the signal completely when the input signal drops below a specified dB level. This is useful for, say, the hum a guitar produces when it's not being played - as soon as you hit a note, the signal goes through, otherwise it's silent.
It's great in the studio where there are all these sources of low-level noise that you don't want. For instance, you might use it to eliminate the ringing of the drums from when some other instrument in the room is playing. It can also be used on reverb, when you want the "excitement" of concert hall echo but you don't want it to ring forever, piling drum reverb upon guitar reverb upon vocal reverb until the mix is just a wash of indeterminate sound.
Someone got the bright idea of setting the trigger level much higher than normal, so that when you hit the snare the noise gate activates almost immediately as the sound decays. So you hear the hit, a bit of the snare hiss, and then the sound cuts off. It helps clean up the mix and maybe tightens up the rhythym, but mostly it was an effect. It quickly became the fashionable drum sound. And then it wasn't.
8 - Johno
What JR said.
9 - Johno
JR, I can't disagree that the gated snare has certain practical advantages in some cases, but when it's abused is when I get tired. I mean-- Agent Orange?
As for Steven Adler, yeah, I liked his sound better, but as long as Duff and Izzy were in the band G&R could have a dead man drumming and sound OK. Reasonable people may differ.
10 - Tom Johnson
JR, thanks, that makes sense and was kind of what I'd already thought it was. Is this responsible for the phenomenon I call the "Tupperware effect"? This is where the drums have no distinct personality and really do sound as if the drummer is playing on a number varying sizes of Tupperware containers. This seemed to be a big sound in the late 70s and 80s. What was up with that?
11 - JR
I guess that was just the accepted "good drum sound" of the day. It would be interesting to hear from the producers what the thinking was.
I remember drummers stuffing pillows into their bass drums to deaden (er.. kill?) the ringing. And then there was the way they tuned the drums; seemed like everybody wanted to sound like Neil Peart at one point. And I imagine the recording engineers wanted to eliminate ringing so the mix would sound really clean and everybody could hear what great engineers they were. I'm sure the guitarists were lobbying to eliminate anything that could potentially mask their precious tone. Heavy compression, necessary for radio broadcasts, probably also had an effect on the drum sound. And of course there's miking technique, or lack thereof. The '80s seemed to emphasize mixing and signal processing over the black art of placing microphones to get the best sound onto tape in the first place. That was back when you still had to generate music acoustically.