A band who shantied long before TikTok ticked, ‘Damn The Amsterdam’ harks a return to the original rootsy Skinny Lister sound. Written about the famous Hastings shipwreck, it’s a straight-up sea shanty which echoes the style and stomp of ‘John Kanaka’ from their first album ‘Forge & Flagon’.
With especially salty guest harmonies coming courtesy of folk pin-ups The Longest Johns, Skinny Lister can confirm that the band will also be joining them on their UK headline tour throughout November and December. Full dates are below.
Written over the past 18 months, Skinny Lister’s new album ‘A Matter Of Life & Love’ is a collection of true stories and feelings that have really mattered to them.
While the album contains all the typically enlivening tales from the road that have made Skinny Lister the stuff of festival legend, from disturbing touring tales of being pulled over by Bavarian police (‘Bavaria Area’) to full throttle airport drinking songs (‘Breakfast At Heathrow’), dig deeper and you’ll find a record that might well be their most personal and profound yet.
Centrepiece and title-track, ‘A Matter Of Life & Love’, is the very heart of the album. Crystallising the record’s core themes with a Madness-esque playfulness, it’s a poppy and poignant reminder to recognise the moments in life that really matter, however trivial or throwaway they may seem at the time. “It’s a sentiment likely borne out of those months of enforced limited social contact endured over the past few months,” says vocalist, songwriter and guitarist Dan Heptinstall. And one not likely to be taken for granted by anyone, or any band for that matter, any time soon.
The Skinnies’ admirable ‘in this together’ ethos is echoed through stirring anthems such as ‘Shout It Out’ and ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, which offer rousing singalongs primed and ready for a new age of live music. Skinny Lister’s adept ability for a heartstring-plucking ballad also remains evident in tracks such as ‘Embers’, an elegant folky composition led by Lorna and destined to make Skinny fans everywhere crumble. Elsewhere, the Celtic-tinged, string-adorned gem ‘Bonny’s Eyes’ offers a touching tribute to the wonder of being a new parent.
Bringing together all their influences and styles, from ska to rock and from folk-punk to traditional shanty, throughout its 12 tracks ‘A Matter Of Life & Love’ is in many ways the distillation of everything that has seen the world fall for Skinny Lister’s charms. And yet, as the first record to be entirely written, produced, recorded and mixed by Skinny Lister themselves, it finds a band with a bolstered sense of confidence and a gleeful skip in their stride. Proving a unique opportunity for the band to create, experiment, and hone music of their own volition, it’s a process that finds a band in liberated form and realising the full Skinny Lister vision as they have always intended it.
Opening-up about recording the new record and what to expect, Dan says:
“It’s great to have made it to album number five, and we can’t wait to see what further adventures lay in store for us as we get it out there on the road and into the world! This has been a very liberating experience, not only allowing us to employ all that we’ve learnt from the top producers of our previous four albums, but also truly realise our own vision of the tracks. We’re very proud of the results.”
An album about camaraderie and companionship through thick and thin, and cherishing the simple things freedom brings, ‘A Matter Of Life & Love’ finds a band brimming with a zest for life, love, music and good times.
* Please note that vinyl preorders will be ready and shipped from April 2022.
