I hate myself when I have an image of a band in my head and how their music is produced. It shows how naive I was when I grasped the wrong end of the stick with ‘Da Skywalkers‘ latest effort ‘End of a chapter… Start of a New’. When it arrived to be reviewed I popped it in my CD player and expected standard punk with tinges of pop melodies and well that was about it. What I got was a street-punk album full of anthemic titles and roaring melodic blasts.
The Swedish five piece’s music can be pinpointed to influences such as Rancid and even some of the more thought provoking efforts of Against Me!. There is no denying though that Da Skywalkers have provided a splendid 43 minutes of street-punk, producing anthems and songs that actually make you sit back and think.
Released on the ever-reliable Household Name label (when was the last time they put a foot wrong?) the tone for the album is set with ‘Another Story’. A rollicking drum intro and catchy lyrics over crunching guitars sums up Da Skywalkers pretty well, although the chorus does fall a little flat in comparison with the rest of the song. ‘Wannabe in the USA’ features thought provoking lyrics about the comparisons between the EU and the States and ‘Sick of This’ storms out the blocks and is a piercing no nonsense tune with a sublime acoustic sing-a-long interlude at the end. ‘Generation’ is a chirpy number with the usual chanty chorus, which is followed by ‘A Cog in the Machinery’ that lasts a mere 52 seconds, but you sure as hell feel it. ‘All for One’ is another up lifter but the superb ‘Last Chance‘ steals the album with horns going over a bouncy number with superb vocal exchanges between Linus and Tommy. ‘Bye Bye Safe Life’ is another thrash of noise and gruff vocals with the usual slightly uplifting number following up, this time in the form of ‘Strangnas’ which unfortunately fails to get going and is the only real disappointment of the album.
‘Where do we go’ is crying out to be a live favourite with a superb chorus and sweet guitar solo at the end. ‘The New Heroes’ slows the pace down a little before another shorter track ups the pace to unmanageable levels and features an opening drum intro which eerily reminds me of Lagwagon‘s ‘Stokin the Neighbours’. ‘Bloodsuckers’ plods along at an uninspiring rate before ‘A smile and a handshake’ and ‘End of a Chapter’ complete the album and there is even a secret track to boot.
The fusion ‘Da Skywalkers‘ manage to make in the 15-song journey is to be admired and although the album is not perfect, they have produced an effort that any self-respecting punk should be proud to have in their collection. Some tracks are slightly laboured and the combination of slow-tempo tracks followed by a volley of noise and adrenalin can become a little frustrating after a while, but other than these minor and somewhat petty problems, this is a lovely album and for £8 on the HHN site, who can say no?
Jay