Monday 11 September 2017

Skin Alley - Skin Alley (1970)


The debut album from this English band.

Skin Alley was a quartet with a lineup of bass, drums, guitars, woodwinds, harpsischord, organ, piano, congas, mellotron and vocals.

Skin Alley released four studio albums between 1970 and 1973 before they gave up and were disbanded. I got their first three albums and will review them this month/you will find reviews of their two other albums somewhere else in this blog.

Skin Alley was one of the many bands who debuted around 1970. Some had their breakthrough and became big bands. Others again had a local following and then became forgotten. Thanx to ProgArchives and Youtube, bands like Skin Alley has gotten a second life. Their music has now gone global. Good !!

The band is listed as a jazz/fusion band in ProgArchives and I fully agree with that when it comes to this album at least. It the only album I have heard from them yet.
The music on this forty minutes long album is a mix of blues, folk rock and a lot of fusion with also a great deal of jazz at the end of the album.

There are some vocals here too and that one is good. The saxophones, flutes and the keyboards (mellotron etc etc) is creating a good synergy and some good songs too. There are some not so good songs too. But the album really becomes good at the end after a very shaky start and mid-phase.

The end result is somewhere between a decent and a good album. Hence my rating.

2.5 points


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