THICKSKIN
Hey bands, you want increase the chances you'll get a nice review?
Put us in the 'Thank You' section of your CD... Or you could just
Stick us on your race car. We'll give you some quality head (review-style, of course)... ball wash and everything.
Remember yesterday... Walkin' Hand in hand... Love letters in the sand... I remember SKID ROW, and you will too if you head into your local music store and pick up a copy of
ThickSkin, the band's first studio disc since
Subhuman Race in 1995, which was also the band's last with frontman Sebastian Bach.
This CD introduces the band's "new" (I use the word loosely because the guy has been in the band for years now) singer, Johnny Solinger, who used to front the Texas-based band bearing the same name, and is vocally a dead ringer for Sebastian. Also on board with Skid Row is drummer Phil Varone, formerly of SAIGON KICK.br>
Considering the main songwriters behind many past Skid Row hits, Rachel Bolan and Dave 'Snake' Sabo, are still in the band, the songs are just what you'd expect, only brought more up to date. "New Generation" sounds very MARILYN MANSON influenced (Think 'Beautiful People' when the opening riff kicks in), and sounds like it could be the band's new rallying call to the fans, just like "Youth Gone Wild" was back in the late 1980s. "Thick Is The Skin", which has actually been around the internet for over a year, is another one that fits into the big-crowd-fist-pumping-anthem category.
The band also re-tooled their big hit "I Remember You" as a punk song, in which Solinger really gets to scream his ass off and showcase his elephant balls.
The songwriting also proves that these guys have been listening to some diverse shit in the years since their last disc. The vocal melodies in "Ghost" and "Born A Beggar" sound like they might have been taken right from GIN BLOSSOMS tunes, and "See You Around" is just about the most mellow songs these guys have recorded...next to "I Remember You", of course, and makes you wonder who's been listening to WALLFLOWERS and MATCHBOX 20 discs non-stop.
Also, from a marketing perspective, making the cover the same color as the band's debut disc is really a smart move. The thirty year-olds who remember the Skids from the 1980s are going to see the red on black logo, and immediately identify it with Skid Row, and that will account for a nice chunk of record sales. (Think about it, you walk into a record store, and you see this thing on the shelf. You say to yourself "Hey, I didn't know these guys were still around"... ten bucks later, you have the thing in your hand and in your car stereo.
Remember kids... you want to increase your likelihood of getting a good review?
suck up to us... you'll be golden.
