ALBUM REVIEW: Radillac – Skin Failure
What do you get when you combine one of the best vocalists in modern metal with the classic fury of SLAYER, the grandeur of MASTODON and the fun hardcore stylings of EVERY TIME I DIE, without sacrificing the musical chops? Why, you get SKIN FAILURE, and their rip-roaring debut album Radillac, of course.
Fronted by ex-BLACK PEAKS vocalist Will Gardner, and featuring members of MEMORIES OF ELEPHANTS and KAINOAH, this supergroup represents a vastly different modus operandi from their collective prior works. This is fast, furious and frenetic, while maintaining that same level of accomplishment and frivolity that they’ve always possessed. Radillac tells the story of an interdimensional Jesus figure that travels through a psychedelic wormhole and journeys through time and space. Case in point, Meat Pond | Down By The River tells the story of the character travelling back to 1980s London where he meets Jeff Bridges and trains in a Matrix-style montage. It really is that batshit insane.
SKIN FAILURE have also enlisted the help of comedy’s resident metalhead Ed Gamble on Skit | Remy Lebeau’s Big Pile Of Bones. You’ll never look at him the same after hearing him say “suck out their insides and wear them like a big coat” in a hard-as-nails cockney accent. Truth be told it sounds more like an American’s take on Bri’ish that veers wildly into sounding more like our brethren Down Under, but the grunts of acknowledgment as he instructs a group to “tear them a bunch of new arseholes until they look like Swiss cheese” is a remarkable moment that ought to go down in the history books.
But as silly and as daft as this album can be, there’s no ignoring the serious talent on display here. Six of Radillac‘s nine tracks are presented as two songs each and they are all proper ragers that show off everything good that this group brings to the playing field. The aforementioned Meat Pond | Down By The River gives Radillac some righteous hooks for fans to scream back at the band; Sleeveless Jesus | The Void is a meaty, chunky beast full of riffs and capped with one of the heaviest breakdowns of the album. Even when Gardner does bust out the slightly silly falsetto, classic metal vocals for “Run to the hiiiiiills” on Southern Fried Homicide | The Radillac Battle Sequence, it’s just so fun to listen to, and he absolutely nails it. What’s more, they’ve managed to make it fit perfectly with the bed of thrashy hardcore erupting around the vox. SKIN FAILURE have brought forth a major melting pot of metal through the decades and updated it for the 21st Century with aplomb.
It’s a genuine pleasure to have Will Gardner back plying his trade and it’s a greater pleasure still to hear him enjoying himself with it. Radillac is the sound of a band that knows they’re ridiculous, but that’s just exactly what SKIN FAILURE have set out to be, because they live safe in the knowledge that the music they create kicks some serious interdimensional rump. On fun alone, this album deserves all of your attention. But it’s so much more than that.
Rating: 9/10
Radillac is set for release on November 11th via Small Pond.
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