Label: My Graveyard Production
Release: 2008
Rating: 2/5
Skanners, a band from Bolzano in the Italian Dolomites, are releasing their 5th studio album, “The Serial Healer”. The band has been around since 1982, so clearly this record didn’t exactly come out in a hurry. Sadly, I can’t tell you what the band sounded like in the eighties and later, on any of the previous albums, so the rating here focuses strictly on “The Serial Healer”.
From the very first track, Soul Finder, which opens the album, you instantly get the feeling that Italy’s Primal Fear are in the room with you. That’s actually an unfair claim, and Skanners deserve a bit more respect at this point, since they formed more than 15 years before Primal Fear were even born, so to speak.
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 the 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 an explosive rhythm line, and the two elements never stop talking to each other, not even in the transitional sections, which keep the songs dynamic and the album appealing. But the main thing that screams Primal Fear is the vocal. It recalls Schepper in its tone and in how the verse melodies are chosen. Skanners, however, don’t have the production excellence of the Germans! The sound has a big shortfall in low end, especially bass lines, which would give the overall sound more “groove”, depth, volume (space). So there’s a gaping hole between the riffs and the clatter of the drums, and the drums end up sounding kind of dull, shallow, too thin. Skanners follow this style of the album “The Soul Healer” faithfully through all 43 minutes of the record. That said, the guys are no strangers to speed metal, and they can unleash an enviable amount of destructive speed in their playing (the track Flash Razor).
For everyone who likes 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 as well, but as said, because of the strong stylistic similarity to the bands mentioned above, the album gets watered down. Especially in ears that are spoiled and used to more explosiveness and daring. An upgrade in production, with more living, breathing sonic textures brought to the front, would be a very welcome fix. Even though Skanners are grinding away at a chewed-over, ossified form, 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 story goes. A riff can remind you of this and that, it can even be an obvious “copy-paste”, 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 accusations of blatant imitation. And for that, Skanners still lack a pinch of creative inspiration.
Lineup
Claudio Pisoni – vocals
Fabio Tenca – guitar
Walter Unterhauser – guitar
Renato Olivari – bass
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:
11. The Serial Healer (video)
Album length: 42.44
