Grey No More: A Brief Review Of The New EP From Skull Practitioners (Jason Victor Of The Dream Syndicate)

Jason Victor is now a member of The Dream Syndicate and there's something of that band's fire percolating in the veins of the tunes from his own Skull Practitioners. The band's new EP, Death Buy, out today via In The Red Records, is a delicious throwback to the sort of semi-blues-based material that fueled so many good records in the Sixties and all the way up to the Eighties. In that sense, the music here is fairly traditional in spots, but no less exciting.

"Death Buy" roars like The Stooges, while "Grey No More" modulates things a bit, offering up a neat blend of something that sounds like Swervedriver with the sort of stomp one once found on old Gun Club numbers. Elsewhere, "The Beacon" shines, no pun intended, as a nice nod to garage rock workouts, while the epic closer "Miami" is both an exploration of guitar-tones, but also a voyage into the heart of darkness astride Victor's wire-y guitar-lines and leading right into a sonic maelstrom. It's this cut that feels the closest to The Dream Syndicate stuff, and Jason Victor has obviously been learning from the best of them here.

Death Buy is out today via In The Red Records.

More details on Skull Practitioners is available via the band's official Facebook page.

[Photo: Carl Hall]