Released by: Escape Music
Release Date: June 3rd, 2011
Genre: Rock/Hard Rock
Links: http://www.skansis.ch/
Line Up:
Reist Reto – Vocals
Joss Daniel – Acoustic guitar
Menz Pfister – Bass
Hagmann Matthias – Drums
Heiniger Beat – Guitars
Tracklist:
1-Next To Mine
2-Leaving You
3-Never Walk Alone
4-I Don’t Believe
5-I Want You
6-Coming Out
7-Rock All Night
8-Carry You On
9-Hear Now
10-Just Another Day
11-Back From War
12-Anything
I guess the band Skansis can be directly liked to their native counter parts Gotthard, except those dudes are already established in the Scandanavia Hard Rock scene and have been for a number of years. Even with the untimely death of their great lead singer Steve Lee (RIP), the band is sure to come back with a strong record with a replacement singer. Now maybe is not fair to just throw in Skansis into the mix but is obvious these guys borrowed a thing of two from the above mention rockers. I had no problem with the bands debut other then the fact that it missed on overall attitude and atmosphere, so I was carefully waiting to see what the group had cooked up on their sophomore release “Leaving You”.
Any rock band knows that you must feature some degree of originality if you want to stand out in todays clustered and very competitive music scene, so in this case the guys feature the interesting scrappy voice of vocalist Reist Reto, which adds a new layer of distinctness each track. In all fairness even though the band has an interesting sound and is not a carbon copy of anybody, the images that come to mind after hearing the first three songs are a mix of modern rock more then pure hard rock, even with a few gothic rock influences thrown in there for arguments sake. The title track didn’t do much for me, I felt it was missing emotion and feeling. The harder riff of “I Don’t Believe’ has a nice tone and the quicker tempo rhythm leads way to an intricate riff and very desire guitar solo. Yesss finally some aggressive melodic hooks on the song “I Want You” featuring a dark haunting undertone with an aggressive bass line, cool stuff something that lacks during the first few tracks.
The cool power ballad of “CarryYou On”has a nice Harem Scarem feel to it, a driving modern day rock riff lifts the track higher, and features yep you guessed it…..more emotion which is something the band had been missing. Skansis returns with a solid effort which builds on their already interesting debut record in 2006. A very young band in terms of camaraderie but I would be very carefully watching these guys to see how they expand on their sound. I think with a more wholly sound structure they can deliver a great record next time. I’ll leave the final decision to you the listener, but this was a good listen for me in terms of quality and growth. Check them out!!!
Written by Denys
Ratings Denys 7/10
Hear the bands new album preview in it’s entirety on their website below:
http://www.skansis.ch/content/sound_2007.php
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