It’s a pleasant enough image, but not one to grab your attention too much, apart from the fact that you’re looking at it upside down.
It’s a pleasant enough image, but not one to grab your attention too much, apart from the fact that you’re looking at it upside down.
Sky Pilots – Enjoy A Day Off
Staring at the cover, looking past the bird house, over the top of the allotment fence we see the town sprawl out and fade into the sunlight yonder. It’s a pleasant enough image, but not one to grab your attention too much, apart from the fact that you’re looking at it upside down. That’s right, turn it around, read the type the right way up and then pause for a moment to contemplate the meaning of this image. Perhaps it’s a visual representation of how the band take, skew, distort and reflect on the world around them? A looking glass view of Californian life, abstracted and reversed by a bunch of young men. It’s a boring town, until you look at it differently. A town that only makes sense with guitar bass and drums. Hey, do you think this might be what they call, alternative?
Sorry, I’ve been reading the broadsheets this morning. Let’s get back to business. Sky Pilots are a three piece band who locked themselves up in a San Francisco studio for a couple of months earlier this year and came out with an 8 track album. That album is released, now, for you to spend your money on. But the question is, is it worth spending your money on?
Actually, if you skip past the opening track, which is pretty good to begin with, but then falls apart soon after. As the lyrics start to call for more passion and intensity, they just start SHOUTING A LOT. Which is neither big, nor clever and totally undoes all the good work going on behind it. The shouting returns towards the end of track 4 too, but thankfully it’s not as annoying there. Track 3, however, Shoot The Pass, is exceptionally good, especially its jammy middle section and slightly paranoid lyrics. Track 5, Drawbacks, heads off into stoner rock territory (think Kyuss playing whale song) and paints a very interesting picture indeed. In fact, it’s probably my favourite track on the album in that it contains no shouting – in fact, no singing at all! Bonus.
Elsewhere they sound like almost every other garage rock band to have come out of an American suburb in the past 15 years. They create some nice pounding rhythms and when they start to enjoy themselves with some extended jammy workout bits they almost become something quite special. But then they start screaming again and ruin everything.
If I was a broadsheet writer I’d say they were a cross between Queens Of The Stone Age and Death From Above 1979, but that would only confuse you as a) they’re not as scary, inventive or as mental as Queens Of The Stone Age and b) Death From Above 1979 are shit and I kind of like these. They could do better (no yelling!), and I sincerely hope they stick at it, but you could do worse than spend your money on them. They also have a song called Elk and for that alone they deserve a mention. I suppose all I have left to say is that Enjoy A Day Off is well worth a listen.
Words : Damian Leslie
Click here to see the Sky pilots website