By: John McLaughlin
Skinflint | website | facebook | twitter |
Released on January 16, 2015 via Pure Steel Records
Botswana metal trio Skinflint is no longer a secret. Fascination with the African nation’s scene has hit an all-time high, with coverage from several major media outlets thrusting images of its cowboy hat-donning true metal warriors into the limelight. It is therefore only a matter of time before the wider world starts to seek out the music, and Skinflint’s name seems to pop up more frequently than most of their other countrymen.
The media attention could not have come at a more perfect time for the band. If the recent successes of acts like Visigoth, Midnight, and Portrait are any indication, it’s a good time to be a band that pulls a lot of influence from the early heavy metal titans, and that’s exactly what Skinflint specializes in. And while their earlier material was somewhat rough around the edges, Nyemba represents a major step forward in the songcraft and performance department.
Skinflint has been described as “the Manilla Road of Africa,” but while you can certainly pick up traces of Mark Shelton and co. on Nyemba, the music here more resembles Iron Maiden if their songs were played with the stripped-down nature of Venom. The fact that vocalist/guitarist Giuseppe Sbrana’s gruff shout takes heavily after Cronos is certainly a contributing factor there, as are bassist Kebonye Nkoloso’s Steve Harris-inspired melodic ideas. And, of course, there’s the riffs, which should please any fan of early heavy metal; this won’t be the most mind-blowing album you hear all year, but it will definitely be a solid, enjoyable, and (especially at its 33-minute runtime) easily-digestable listen.
Nyemba is also the most polished recording in the band’s discography as well. This definitely isn’t a bad thing, as the album doesn’t fall into the sterilized-and-overproduced category; the tones still sound plenty real and organic, they’ve just been cleaned up a bit. Unfortunately, whoever handled the mixing and mastering was criminally heavy-handed with the compression, and the brickwalling on this album is excessive even by modern Loudness War standards. The riffs still take precedence over the sound quality, so I’m able to overlook it to a degree, but it definitely does a disservice to the music to have it mashed like this.
But despite that flaw, Nyemba is still a worthy showing. It’s polished but still gritty, a touch sloppy but entertaining nevertheless, and certainly gives us a good reason to pay attention to what they do in the future. There is definitely room for growth, but the band has displayed an ability to improve already and that is a very, very good sign for their future.
