Song of the Week: Death from Above

This week I'm starting to play catch up, having been absent around here for much of this year so far. I was telling Jamey earlier today how I began the year determined to write more, but have somehow ended up writing less. Life has been interfering with my plans big time, but I hope things will start settling at least a little now (I realise I've said that before but I'm choosing to be an optimist!).

Right then, lets crack on! This one's a bit of a special one for me personally, so bear with me while I attempt to articulate why, hopefully without descending into the kind of incoherent enthusiasm that makes me sound like I've been at the rave Zac mentioned in Mississippi Mud Pie Blues.

Death from Above (ft. Sylla) is the title track from the EP of the same name, released around May 2023, and later appeared on Soul Boy III. If you've yet to listen to it, you need to fix that right now. Seriously. I'm even making it really easy for you!

Now then. Where do I start?

Let's talk about that title for a moment. Death from Above. It's a bold title but in spite of that I'm not entirely sure what it means in the context of the song. There's the obvious biblical explanation, but I doubt very much that applies here, at least not in a literal sense. A plane falling from the sky? Also unlikely. Google wasn't too much help either, it mostly linked me to a Canadian band named Death From Above 1979 (who actually sound pretty good). Could there be a link there? Maybe, Zac does like putting in references to other bands in his songs. It seems like a bit of a shot in the dark, though. I think this one might be too much work for my brain tonight (not a difficult thing it has to be said). If you have an idea what it means, stick your answer on the back of a postcard in an email to me or on the Facebook group post for this article,

So, on to the music!

Right from the off, this one has a life of its own and grabs you by the collar, dragging you somewhere fast and loud and brilliant. There's no easing in gently here (looking at you, Dipped). Death from Above gets straight down to business - no fuss, no muss - with a drumbeat that instantly pumps energy at you straight from your speakers, accompanied by an utterly delicious, equally energetic guitar segment.

The song has that raw, urgent punk energy that The Skinner Brothers do so exceptionally well. It's not manufactured aggression, or put on for effect. It feels genuinely alive, like the song is restless and can't quite contain itself, and that infectious quality is impossible to resist. That line in the song where Zac proclaims himself a "Rock 'n' Roll soldier" seems very fitting - a well earned title!

Hush with your bullshit
I can't hear a sound

Right. We're definitely honing in on this one, because this is the lyric that gets me every single time, without fail. At my core, I'm a no-nonsense type of person. I've little patience for waffle, performance, pretense, or the general avalanche of absolute bullshit that seems to pour from every conceivable direction these days. You know the kind of thing I mean. It's everywhere. Social media. The news. Conversations you didn't ask to be part of. The world, in my humble opinion, is absolutely drowning in it and it's deafening. So when Zac delivers those two lines - in that calm, direct manner, something in me goes "yes, exactly, thank you!" It's the lyrical equivalent of putting your hand up and saying enough, I can't stand the noise anymore!

The following line, "You shouldn't speak with your head in the ground" only compounds that sense of impatience with the constant crap the world throws at you. There's something wonderfully no fuss about it. The brilliance lies in the fact that it's not a rant or a lengthy manifesto, it just cuts straight through to the core. Which, fittingly, is exactly what this song does as a whole.

The rest of the lyrics carry that same sharpness. There's a restless, frustrated energy running through the song that feels authentic rather than performative. Again, very much a Skinner Brothers hallmark. Zac has always had an impressive ability to articulate a very specific feeling without over-explaining it, and Death from Above is a particularly good example of that. You feel the urgency before your brain has even had a chance to fully process the words..

Musically, this song is an absolute delight. The guitar work is insistent and charged, the kind that unapologetically gets under your skin in the best way and stays there. The drums are relentless in the best possible way and conspire with the overall instrumentation to keep you wanting more. There's a real drive to this track that keeps the energy high from start to finish without ever tipping over into chaos. Well, maybe there's some disciplined chaos, if that's not a contradiction. (It is, but hey, it's still a good description!)

Sylla features on this track, and while their section is relatively brief, it slots in really well. It adds a layer that complements the song's momentum without disrupting it. Much like Grim Sickers on Mississippi Mud Pie Blues, the featured artists on Skinner Brothers songs have a knack for feeling like they genuinely belong there rather than just being dropped in for the sake of a credit.

I thought it worth mentioning that Death from Above holds a particular place in my heart for reasons slightly beyond the music itself. In July 2024, literally days after I discovered The Skinner Brothers, I placed my very first merch order. It included a signed copy of Soul Boy IV on vinyl and a signed copy of the Death from Above EP on CD. It's a lovely gate-fold CD (props to Noir X as always for the cover) and as you can see from the photos, includes the full lyrics inside the sleeve. Yes, you heard me, it has the actual lyrics printed on the inside! I was absolutely thrilled with that! Back in the days when I mostly listened to vinyl (I won't mention exactly how long ago that was), it was a common thing to include the printed lyrics, usually on the inside of a gate-fold cover or in a separately printed booklet tucked into the sleeve. I spent many days and nights listening to an album with the cover or lyric booklet in my hands. I wish that tradition had carried on to today's vinyl and CD market, but alas it seems very rare.

Back to today, I have one small problem: I don't own a CD player. Nor a record player, despite collecting every SB release on both vinyl and CD. So the CD sits tucked away safely along with the rest of my collection - signed, in pristine condition and entirely unplayed. Meanwhile, I've listened to the EP digitally approximately a thousand times. There's probably a metaphor in there somewhere but I'm not sure I want to find it. I do plan to get both a record and CD player but I'm also quite picky and so these things aren't cheap and need saving for. It's also a catch 22 situation - I love buying vinyl, but the more I buy, the less money I have left to set aside to get that elusive record / CD player. There are worse problems to have in life I guess, but I really would like to solve this one sooner rather than later.

The EP itself is worth a brief mention, because it's a genuinely great little collection of tracks. It also contains Bad Brains, the very song that gave this blog its name. Both Jamey and I have slightly chaotic brains of the ADHD variety, so the name tickled us greatly, as well as serving as a tribute to the song. It felt fitting in every possible way. Also, contrary to the messages we sometimes get on social media, it has nothing to do with the band named Bad Brains. Some people have been quite upset about that, as though we're intentionally being misleading somehow. I'm sure the band is great, but I'd have thought it fairly obvious that this is not that.

Tangent over, back to Death from Above. Both as a song and as an EP, it feels like a turning point energy-wise. There's a confidence and sheer punk ferocity to it that is genuinely exciting. It's the sort of music that leaves you feeling wide awake, ready to shrug off the bullshit in this world. The energy rubs off on you and the lyrics clear the fog of external noise, giving you a renewed sense of purpose and allowing you to go about your day not giving two fucks about the aforementioned "noise" that penetrates our modern lives. This remains true even on the quieter sounding songs on the EP, like FK THIS and Shell Down. Those songs may not be an exact match musically speaking, but spiritually they fit right in.

A quick word on the excellent accompanying video - you'll have noticed this post is fairly image heavy. I try not to make a habit of stuffing as many images as possible in my posts here, but I loved the video so much it was hard not to. I make absolutely no apologies for that, just take it as my great appreciation of the work Noir X does. I love this video for it's simple, yet experimental and very well shot, charm. While watching, it also dawned on me that maybe this was one of the first times Zac experimented with masks? Then again, my brain is often easily confused, so I could have my timelines wrong. Feel free to correct me!

In closing: if you want a song that grabs you by the shoulders, shakes you up, and sends you on your way feeling considerably more alive than you did before you pressed play, Death from Above is a song for you. If you're anything like me, you'll find yourself mentally joining Zac in raising a middle finger to the worst bits of our world, but without having to actually raise your hand. It feels quite gratifying!

Hush with your bullshit. This is what music is supposed to sound like.

You can buy your very own copy of the Death from Above EP on CD by clicking the button below. Alternatively, you can buy a copy on Bandcamp.

Buy the CD from the official website.