11. Band of Skulls – ‘Baby Darling Doll Face Honey’

Number 11!

Why hello!

I’m gonna get straight into it – I’ve been listening to the Band of Skulls album; ‘Baby Darling Doll Face Honey’, which I can say is the hardest album title to remember ever. The only way I can remember it is because it’s in alphabetical order…which might be intentional….I can imagine them all sitting down and reading down a list of names to call women in the 20^th century, and they read those in succession and thought it sounded great.
Although I’m sure there’s more in between those.
Cutie, girl, gorgeous, female…see! Loads!

As for the artwork, I can see a rose, a goat and a butterfly. Or a butterfly with a goats head with a rose for a brain. Or a fox. I can see a fox too.
Or it could all be a scam, and everyone see’s different things no matter their mood or tendencies – just like the real Rorschach tests! It’s like horoscopes, and fortune cookies. They’re all things that suck people in to make them think that ink blots, stars and Chinese children that are forced to work in sweat houses can predict the future or something….

ANYWAY!

Moving on to the music.

The first song is ‘Light of the Morning’.

I love how this one starts!
It begins with a very subtle guitar chord, but then cuts to just vocals with guitar following it, and then 2 bursts of sound from the band along to the last word of the sentence….and I understand that’s quite hard to imagine, so I’ll write it.
“I wanna see you in the MOR-NING, I wanna see you when the breaking day is DAW-NING.”

Then when that section of the song finishes, the rest of the band comes in – mostly the drums (well, mostly the cymbals – which kind of take over the song).

They have a very classic rock feel in between the verses. I can just imagine them now – the guitarist and bassist sway side to side quickly – a lot like The Beatles did, but a bit more aggressive. Meanwhile the drummer is making good use of his 2 crash cymbals – one to the right, and one to the left, and just playing them back and forth like he can’t make his mind which one he prefers.

The song is about sex. Well…it’s about wanting sex by having the desire to see someone in the morning. Unless they just want to go out for coffee.
But this is a rock song…..so yeah. Sex.

It also has a slow finish, where the song stops and changes to something completely different – and the absolute end sounds like it’s gonna go into “Radar Love”.

Next up is “Death by Diamonds and Pearls”.

Now, I’ve heard this song before – can’t remember where or when. But I used to love it.
Probably because it’s very Raconteurs sounding – I think they could cover it and no-one would be able to tell the difference to be honest!

It’s an awesome song – but then, I might be biased.
It starts with a really nice grungy-sounding guitar and then the drums and vocals come in. It has a similar thing to the last song, where they seem to have 2 bursts of sound from the whole band along to the last word of the sentence. But nowhere near as prominent.

“She grew up in a nice neighbourhood, but it didn’t do her no good. Cause she’s just a sum of her influence, and I can’t tell you the difference, by the cracked windscreen on her car, something is telling me you don’t know how lucky you are. You’re just like the rest of those girls. They’re all death by diamonds and pearls.”

This song, as well as the last one, both have a lot of empty space in them. There’s a lot of the song that’s just in between sounds and where it goes completely quiet. Even if it’s only for a split second – there’s just no underlying drone throughout. Which I love – because having drops are what makes songs really fun to play and listen to!

Quite like the last song, this one also has an ending which is different to the core of the song. But this is more of just a guitar solo instead of changing the song completely, it just makes it feel a lot faster – also, another reason why this sounds like The Raconteurs – that could easily be a Jack White solo!

Next is “I Know What I Am”.

This one took me by surprise, because it’s a complete change from the last songs.
This time it’s a marching tune – with bass and drums thumping along while the guitar makes nice little train sounds (chukka chukka). But the thing that really stands out is the vocals – firstly comes the main male vocals that has been in all the other songs. But then a female vocals comes in – and the 2 voices work really well together!

The chorus where they sing in unison is brilliant – especially when it ends. The drummer appears to have gotten a bit carried away, starting off a little drum roll and getting faster and faster until I can imagine the singers giving him an evil look and forcing him to stop. It was of course written in, but I prefer to think that it went like that!

“Gasoline, saccharin, I got no reason for the state I’m in. But I know what I am, they know what they are. So let me be.” “Hotel, Taco Bell, I got the hit that you know damn well. But I know what I am, they know what they are. So let me be.”

They of course throw in a guitar solo for good measure, and then the vocals come back in but overlap each other a bit – and the guitar sounds like something you’d play on Guitar Hero, where if you miss the beat it makes the song sound dreadful. I also really like the ending, where it just slows right down and fades out in a drone of a pulsing guitar.

Next – “Fires”.

This is the song that they got their album title from. Literally the first line is “Baby darling doll face honey. No I don’t mean to cause you worry. It’s only hands in my pocket and the Queen on my money.”
After a quick Google – I learn they’re an English band – which is awesome! It’s just a great feeling to know awesome music is still coming out of England. Although the only reason why I wanted to know was because of the ‘Queen on my money’ line – after all, I think there’s a couple of Queens still ruling in the world….although I use the term ‘ruling’ lightly. The Queen of England doesn’t really have a say in anything – I’d actually be very interested what would happen if she said she wanted to wage war on France. Would it actually happen? Probably not. I imagine there’s a team of people who make sure she doesn’t say stupid things like that – and then a team of people who tell her what to say. They call themselves ‘advisors’, and I’m sure in the past if they ever advised against the Queen, that’d be the last anyone saw of them. But now-a-days, the Queen just does as she’s told.

Mind you, if this is the last review I ever post, you’ll know why. God save the Queen and all that.

OH YEAH – the song, that’s why I’m writing this. Ok.

It starts off like they’re gonna suddenly stop and shout “FLASH! AHHHHHH!”, but they don’t. It instead goes into the line I wrote before I started to insult the Queen.

“We are fires in the night.”

This one also has quite a bit of empty space, but not as much as previous songs – because the bass is being played quickly in the background so that fills any spaces between the drums and guitar. And those are the only instruments. There’s only 3 of them – guitarist/singer, bassist/singer and a drummer/no vocals.

For just 3 people, they have a brilliant loud sound, but also intricate at the same time. Plus, unlike previous albums, these songs don’t sound exactly some other song I’ve listened to. I mean, yes, they’re either influenced by The Raconteurs or this album just happens to sound very similar. It’s not as chaotic as The Raconteurs, but it’s just the sound they have.

Next song – ‘Honest’

This one caught me a bit off guard. But in a good way.
It’s very quiet to start, and has beautiful female vocals with male harmonies – with really nice picked guitar and simple bass and drums. It’s a really nice change from the more upbeat start to the album, and they’ve accomplished it really well, gradually getting slower in each song.

“You gotta be honest, you gotta be guarded. Sure I’m gonna say. Right on the inside that is the hardest, the hardest game to play. You sorted it all out and managed to slip through the night into the day. Life and the soul do you ever get lonely? I’m gonna take you on.”

With the previous songs, they’ve all had hints of Raconteurs – as you probably realised. This one however, is completely stand-alone. I can’t think of 1 band that this sounds like – which is rare, and makes this song very special.
I mean, obviously, I don’t have a very wide musical spectrum…so this probably sounds like a couple of bands, but it’s nearly impossible to write anything completely original now-a-days unless it sounds utterly crap. It just seems like all the good songs and styles have been taken, so all you can do now is try and not completely rip them off while at the same time stealing some of their ideas.

Or, if you want to write a pop song, take a really good song and go full on karaoke on it, but throw in some wubs and unnecessary raps.

‘Patterns’ is next.

It almost bleeds into the previous song, with a low drone coming from the end of that song into the start of this one, and then the dirty bass and drums come in! Sounding very Bloody Royal.

After a couple of bars of that it dies down a bit and the vocals come in. And speaking of stealing other song - They’re singing a well known nursery rhyme…apparently. My girlfriend informed me it’s ‘One for Sorrow’ – a song about magpies. Learn a new thing every day!

They sing it with the same words as the original, up until number 8.
For those of you who don’t know how it goes, it’s ok. I can help.

“There’s one for the sorrow, and two for the joy. Three for the girls and four for the boys. There’s five for the silver and six for the gold, seven for the secrets that are never to be told.”

 It’s then supposed to go “Eight for a wish, nine for a kiss, ten for a bird you must not miss.” But instead, this version goes like so: “There’s eight in the river and nine in my head, and ten of the worst kind sleeping in my bed.”

Later in the song they sing it over again, but change the words for some a bit more…grown up. Although the whole song sounds a bit menacing – they’ve made it quite dark and gothic sounding – not exactly metal, but also not exactly rainbows and unicorns…or magpies in this case.

I believe, because it’s a nursery rhyme, the copyright laws are different. It depends when it was written, but most are in public domain because they were written so long ago and the writers are long gone, or no-one can prove where they originated.

It was actually only recently that a judge declared that ‘Happy Birthday To You’ should be in public domain. Before then it was technically copyright to sing it in public without paying to use it – so TV programmes couldn’t use it without paying. (Little behind the scenes bit here – I was just thinking of putting “How crazy is that?!” after that sentence, but I decided not to because this is a serious blog…and comedy that bad will not be a part of it. No matter how ‘cray-cray’ something is.)

Oh, and for those of you who don’t get my humour. That was meant to be a joke. Cray-cray right?!

NEXT!
‘Hollywood Bowl’

Starting off sounding a lot like The Zutons (Finally – a band without Jack White in!) with strumming and ‘hey!’s.
This is another song with both male and female lead vocals, changing between verses. I love this kind of music with any voice, but especially female lead vocals. Very Dead Weather (I need to stop referring to bands with Jack White in….unfortunately, I don’t know any more. AND WHY WOULD I NEED TO?! Mr White is brilliant!)

The music is back to being quite upbeat, although it’s quite simple through the verses, only building up afterwards – there’s no choruses in the song, just 2 verses (1 male and 1 female) and a few heys and ohs.

There’s a few really nice guitar string noises, held notes and controlled feedback throughout the song – they’re really subtle, so normal people wouldn’t pick up on them, but they add to the sound on an unconscious level.

“Because you sold your soul at the Hollywood Bowl.”

That’s the last line of the song, and they sing it like they’re a broken record – slowing down in a weird timing before going off into another bar of music and then finishing again!

‘Bomb’ is up next.

Starting with the ticking of a…well, probably a bomb. But it just sounds like an egg timer – especially when they crank it round. But they then stuck to the same timing as its ticking, which I really like! It’s a clever way of finding a time signature somewhere and writing a song around it. Unfortunately, I fear they may have sped it up a bit, unless their egg timer ticks out of time, which is always a possibility!
If their eggs are never cooked properly, that’d explain why!

“All that you do, all that you say. Ticking time bomb is ticking away. You can’t stay home or go away. Ticking time bomb is ticking away.”

They also build up with the whole band (plus a couple of extra sounds that aren’t from them – I can hear a really subtle glockenspiel in there somewhere. But after building up it cuts back to just the ticking and a filthy sounding guitar which is playing a simple riff.

I get this funny feeling that they wrote this while they were high and one of them had a craving for noodles – and set a timer so they wouldn’t forget. But then one of others heard this ticking coming from somewhere and they all freaked out thinking there was a bomb in their kitchen.
They then found it was coming from a small egg timer, so threw it out the window and then the noodles caught on fire because they forgot they were cooking them in the chaos and burnt the house down killing everyone in side. That’s why they’re called Band of SKULLS!

DUN DUN DUUUUN!

Next up, just like my previous theory, is ‘Impossible’.

I mean, how can a skeleton play drums? Or anything for that matter. Even if they could move around, they have no muscles – so actually couldn’t move around, let alone play an instrument. Now THAT is impossible.

This song sounds quite U2-ish. Marching drums, high pitched guitar and droning bass. It’s a very stadium sounding song. The vocals even sound a bit like Bono!

That is until it gets to the chorus – it then changes to more of a ‘stadium sing-a-long’ song. But not by U2….

It then has a brilliant line, which I feel I want the second half tattooed somewhere:

“So cut my out of every photo. Who would’ve thought of sinking so low? It’s impossible to be invincible, but maybe it’s possible to be impossible!”

Of course, I won’t get it tattooed….I’m more of a “That looks awesome!!” than a “I live by these lyrics” kinda man – unless those lyrics are written by Jack White of course….

“Blood” is next.

Starting off very bluesy. VERY bluesy!

Muted guitar and hi-hat cymbals – everything else then comes in, with female vocals – staying very bluesy, but a bit heavier than it started – most noticeably, with the bass following the vocals and not the rest of the music – which adds an almost controlled sloppy feel to the song – which is a great contrast, because all the other songs are very tight.
There’s then a moment where everything stops and it sounds like the guitarist falls down a well, with his guitar, amp and power supply with him, playing a wobbling chord until the drums come back in and pull him back out of the well.

Lucky for him really, because he has a great little solo towards the end of the song – it’s very simple, but that’s exactly what the song needed! Echoing guitar strings followed by a hint of over-drive and then A LOT of over-drive in a second solo.
Gorgeous!

“I know you’re bleeding baby, but you’re not bleeding blood.”

Lies.
I bet they’re bleeding lies. What else could it be?
Unless they’re bleeding their radiators….or they have a space around them for the ink to bleed in to.
But that would be “I know you don’t have a bleed baby.”

Or you know, they could actually be bleeding blood, and the singer’s wrong.

Second to last is ‘Dull Gold Heart’.

This has such a simple start – just slow guitar (which sounds like something from Third Eye Blind and 2 vocals. It could’ve stayed like that throughout and it would’ve been brilliant, but then it got better!!

It did a transition from slow into fast, but it tricked me into thinking it was going to go full out, but it died down again – just not as far as when it started, but the drums and bass join in.
I’ve heard something like it on the song ‘Search and Destroy’ by Skunk Anansie but this one is nowhere near as violent, and doesn’t turn into a full on rock-metal track!

It does this a couple of times throughout the song, teasing that it will become something heavier. Until it does!
The guitar takes over and (over)drives it along, but everything else stays as it was. Kinda feels like the guitarist wanted it to go loud, but no-one else got the memo.

Still works though!

“Shot in the dark, I’ll wait for you. Dull gold heart. I’ll wait.”

The song stays very much the same throughout, right until the end where everything gets a bit more livelier and louder until the end where it completely dies out and goes back to the same sound as the very start of the song.

And finally – the last song.

‘Cold Fame’ (I read it as ‘Cold Frame’ and thought it was going to be a song about looking after plants on cold nights.)

This is a brilliant song – possibly one of my favourites on the album. It’s long – just over 8 minutes in total. But it sounds great!
Starting with just droning guitar and drums, then there’s a little kick and the guitar comes swinging in – really mellow and sounding great.
Then the bass and vocals come in and it finishes the whole sound off.
Going back to my previously successful ‘describing a genre by telling you to close your eyes and imagine a scenario’ technique, I’d say this reminds me of riding a bike through a flat field of wild flowers on a beautiful summers evening, with pollen and seeds all flying into the air behind me. I say I’m on a bike because it’s smoother and easier on my legs – also I imagine moving along extremely smoothly, like I’m floating an inch above the ground.

You know that Galaxy chocolate advert? Set in France, with the bus and the pretty lady who then gets into that blokes car after stealing the bus drivers hat? Well – as I found out from Fern, that’s entirely CGI! It’s amazing!
But when you look back at it, right at the end she’s relaxing in the back of the car, and the video stays completely still – that’s because there wasn’t a camera needed, so they just drew it all straight.
Well – that’s what I want my bike ride through the field to be like.

The feel and music in this song actually reminds me a lot of the Field Music album I listened to a couple of blogs ago – it’s very similar, but there’s only 1 on this album!

Well, baby. That’s the end, darling. Don’t worry, doll face. I like honey.

This is a superb album – and I will admit that I’ve been listening to it on YouTube, but will go and buy it asap so I can listen to it in the car constantly!

The different styles used without make it a joy to listen to, and keep it fresh and kept me on my toes.
I know I compared them to Jack White quite a few times, and although there appears to be a couple of likenesses – they’re very different, and in a brilliant way!

Do you agree/disagree with anything I said? Like / dislike the review? Any constructive criticisms? Please leave a comment below! Would love to hear from you. Also, if you have any recommendations of albums I should listen to and review (as long as the artwork is awesome), let me know.

Thanks for reading, keep tuned for the next blog.

I will be reviewing ‘What a Pleasure’ by Beach Fossils

Don’t forget to check out my website, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube below.

I’m doing these blogs alongside my better half; Fern Teather – she is listening to a new albums (doesn’t matter about the artwork, she’s trying to expand her musical knowledge and listen to new artists!). She’s also keeping a blog, and it’s nowhere near as long as this one, so go give it a read!!
Check it out here: 52-albums.blogspot.com

See ya!

Sam

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