Artist: Skanners
Label: My Graveyard Production
Release: 2008
Duration: 42.44
Rating: 2.5/5
Skanners, a band from Bolzano in the Italian Dolomites, are putting out their 5th studio album with “The Serial Healer”. The band has been around since 1982, so it’s safe to say this stuff comes off their hands very slowly. Sadly, I can’t tell you what the band sounded like in the eighties and later, i.e. on all the previous albums, so this rating will focus exclusively on “The Serial Healer”.
From the very first song, Soul Finder, which opens the album, we’re hit instantly with the feeling that Italy’s own Primal Fear are in the room with us. That’s admittedly an unfair claim, and Skanners deserve a bit more respect at this point, since they were formed more than 15 years before Primal Fear were born.
Whenever Primal Fear come up, Judas Priest are the obvious musical parallel too. The things that have me going on about the German power metallers this whole time are, of course, the direct, raw metal riffs, backed by intense galloping drums with plenty of wild double bass pedal action. Polished “shredding” in compact riffs is nicely locked into the explosive rhythm line, and the interplay between the two doesn’t falter even in the transitional passages, which keep the songs dynamic and the album appealing. Now, the main element that screams Primal Fear is the vocals. They recall Schepper in tone and in the way the verse melodies are picked. But Skanners don’t have the Germans’ production excellence! The sound is missing a lot of low end, especially bass lines that would give the overall sound more “groove”, depth and volume (space). So there’s a hole gaping between the riffs and the clatter of the drums, and the drums end up sounding a bit dull, shallow, too thin. Skanner stay faithful to the style of “The Soul Healer” described here through all 43 minutes of the album. That said, the guys are no strangers to speed metal and can unleash an enviable amount of destructive speed in their playing (the song Flash Razor).
If you like Primal Fear, and Judas Priest too, the album is worth a try. Skanners offer polished, compact songs, and the solos are very nicely built into the form, but as said, because of the strong stylistic similarity to the bands mentioned, the album gets watered down. Especially for ears that are spoiled and used to more explosiveness and daring. An upgrade in production, with more lively sonic textures brought to the front, would be a most welcome fix. Even though Skanners are grinding through a chewed-over, ossified formula, with this kind of production the riffs would come alive more intensely, and the music would feel more real and convincing. You know how that old story goes. A riff may remind you of this and that, it can even be an obvious “copy-paiste”, since pretty much everything has already been invented in heavy metal. But if you find the right way to interpret it, you free the music from any potential accusations of blatant imitation. And for something like that, Skanners still lack a pinch of creative inspiration.
Lineup
Claudio Pisoni – vocals
Fabio Tenca – guitar
Walter Unterhauser – guitar
Renato Olivari – bass guitar
Christian Kranauer – drums
Track list
1. Soul Finder
2. Welcome To Hell
3. To Die Is Not Forever
4. The 17Th Victim
5. Iron Horse
6. The Serial Healer
7. The Dream
8. Flash Razor
9. Beyond Darkness
10. Immortality
bonus track:
11. The Serial Healer (video)
