Skids
Burning Cities
No Bad Records
It has has been 36 years since Joy, the last album by the trailblazing Scots post-punkers, and front man Richard Jobson and crew have decided to show there are more strings to their bow than recent mainly nostalgia-heavy live outings. The passing 16 years ago of original guitarist Stuart Adamson who wrote the music raised questions over whether they could still cut it.
Any sense of trepidation of an unlikely renaissance is soon blasted away with an album that refuses to accept it's the end and is determined to keep true to the past, while striving to remain relevant.
It gets off to a promising start with the breast-beating This Is Our World and continues with the foot-stomping One Last Dance, the first on the album to have the stamp of the bagpipe-guitar Adamson introed in early Skids material and made familiar with Big Country.
The sneering Kings Of The New World Order is prime Skids and an instant fans favourite while they slow the tempo just twice in 11 tracks with the uplifting and haunting Refugee a highlight. Skids albums were never the most consistent. But in 2018, the band may just have produced their most dependably catchy and anthemic collection of tunes.
Martin Williams
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here