Album Review: Band Of Skulls - Love Is All You Love

Cocky retro-rock revivalists Band Of Skulls don’t generate much enthusiasm for their new record Love Is All You Love. During the interim between this and their 2016 effort By Default, they lost long-time drummer and co-writer Matt Hayward, resulting in a band searching for a new direction. Not that Hayward was the keystone, but with his departure the band seems to have lost their footing as a cohesive unit. Their attractive confidence has been replaced with an unconvincing swagger. Derivative, uninspired riffs are hung out to dry by a coldly functional rhythm section, an ingredient so vital to the stomp-and-sway bravado of their sound up to this point.

Behind the desk is producer Richard X, a guy traditionally associated with pop magic from MIA, Goldfrapp and Pet Shop Boys. The results are flat, glossy and completely unchallenging, the potentially exciting artistic relationship adding up to nought as two trains of thought converge unsuccessfully.

Occasionally the heart flutters, as during the anthemic Cool Your Battles, thanks to a nice harmony-driven arrangement and a militant optimism pushing the song ahead. They try again during the U2 homage Speed Of Light, a lunkheaded paean to a weird time in the early '90s when yacht-rock met alt-rock. It doesn’t work. The group finish up with an attempt at a festival-ready mash-up of Foals and Broods. Again, not the best, but it at least felt like a genuine effort, something that cannot be said for the rest of the album.