siLLy puPPy REVIEWER'S CHALLENGE chosen by Unitron

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Although it wouldn’t come into fruition until the 90s when bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden and Alice In Chains added pop elements to the overall sound and elevated it as the most popular form of rock music of the decade, grunge rock was in reality a more raw and gritty form of alternative rock that splintered off of the wider post-punk garage band movement all the way back in the early 80s coming to life in the far northern American city of Seattle in the days when the world was seemingly fixated only on the scenes emerging from Los Angeles and New York City. Some of the earliest bands to adopt the new term grunge were Green River, The U-Men, The Fluid and Screaming Trees. While the sound would be polished as time progressed, at the earliest stages it was very much a a sloppy hybrid of punk and metal with ample influences from indie noise bands such as Sonic Youth. Riding in the waves of these early offshoots was another Seattle based band SKIN YARD which formed as early as 1985 and despite having never found the success that they deserved managed to be quite influential in the works of everyone from Soundgarden, The Melvins and even Screaming Trees and Green River who emerged before them.

The band was formed by Daniel House (bass) and Jack Endino (guitar) and quickly joined by Ben McMillan (vocals) and Matt Cameron (drums) and soon after began their live performances opening up for U-Men. Like many genres, grunge showed a huge display of diversity in the early days before it was polished into commercial perfection in the 90s sound that made it palatable for public consumption. Serving as one of the earliest examples of the Seattle grunge scene, the debut album SKIN YARD is chock full of various ungrungy influences ranging from the obvious punk bands such as Black Flag, indie noise rock a la Sonic Youth as well as with traditional heavy metal acts like Black Sabbath. Also there is a strong nod to David Bowie in McMillan’s vocals, progressive touches from Pink Floyd (just listen to that intro to “Epitaph For Yesterday”) and King Crimson. Funk guitar which is quite prominent, reminds me of some of those early Cure songs and at times there’s a detectable U2 guitar style as heard on The Edge’s earliest offerings that seeps into the grooves as well. For those familiar with only the 90s grunge scene, it will come as a complete surprise as to how much more sophisticated the style was at this stage when it even contained elements of psychedelia (just check out that trippy sliding guitar on “The Blind Leading The Blind.”)

While a polished product this early example of the genre is not, it is impossible not to hear the snippets of familiar sounds that would be heard on later acts that would capitalize on this early prototype. What SKIN YARD delivered at this early stage of their career is far from the slick poppified Nirvana type albums that dominated the 90s. This on the other hand very much displays a strong connection to the alienation of the post-punk movement with ample amounts of other influences creating a dynamic display of diversity that in reality only shares a highly distorted alternative guitar approach with the more successful grunge acts that followed. It also serves as a reminder that grunge didn’t just appear out of nowhere. It was a very much a continuation of several earlier shifts away off of musical branches that date back to the 70s and thus SKIN YARD provided that awkward transition between two different worlds which more often than not gets ignored in favor of those who copied and added the pop elements later.

This debut has seen two substantially different releases with different track listings, so depending on which one you have heard could very much affect your like / dislike of this album. For example: the track “Burning The Candle” appeared ONLY on the original vinyl release while “Gelatin Babies” and “Bleed” appeared on both the CD and vinyl reissues. “Out Of The Attic,” Skinstruction,” and “Red Tension,” “The Birds” and “She Shook Me Cold (David Bowie cover and live)” are found on the CD only. Personally i would only rate the original release as the other tracks have a little too much David Bowie and funk guitar influence going on to be considered grunge. The original album track list also displays a more accurate portrait of where the grunge scene was at in the 80s. While i’m sure SKIN YARD will never gain the popularity of 90s the behemoths of polished grunge, they should at least be experienced as to hear how the genre unfolded in its origins. On top of that the band had an interesting way of blending their influences and steering them into a recognizable 90s arena although not fully so at this point.