EP review and interview: DOLL SKIN – In Your Face

EMP Records (EP)

There is no doubt that 2015 has been a great year for new music and ending the year on a high note is Doll Skin. Produced by Megadeth bassist David Ellefson, and released on his EMP Records label, this female four-piece can certainly hold their own.

The 7 track “In Your Face” EP is ballsy and energetic with dirty guitars and punk edged vocals throughout. Opening track “Family of Strangers” is without a doubt The Runaways for the 21st Century complete with “Babylon Is Burning” style guitars- it works and is a great song that sticks in your head. “Wring Me Out” and “Let’s Be Honest” continue in a similar vein and the EP only slows down temporarily with the slower, and slightly haunting, “Blind”. Then we have “So Much Nothing” which has a feel somewhere between Velvet Revolver and early 90’s grunge.

“In Your Face” is rounded off by a live track “Weatherman”, showing that the band can easily replicate any studio sound live. Doll Skin are definitely a band to keep an eye on and one that I think we will be hearing a lot about in 2016. *****

Review by Nikk Gunns

Here Nikk poses a few questions to guitarist Alex Snowden…

1-Your debut release “In Your Face” is out now, talk us through the EP?

The EP opens up with the first song we ever wrote as a band ‘Family of Strangers’, basically it’s about people coming together for music, like at a concert, and becoming somewhat of a family. We’ve watched that song evolve into something totally huge and we love it.

Next comes more of our upbeat, but still pretty heavy songs; ‘Wring Me Out’ and ‘Let’s Be Honest’. ‘Wring Me Out’ is our anti love song. ‘Let’s Be Honest’ is all about an implied message, a bit of a play on words, and it’s about standing up for yourself in a world where people will always be passing judgment on you.

The fourth track is ‘Blind’. This track has some major sentimental value to us, especially on our singer Sydney’s behalf. It’s about some personal struggles her sister had and it’s a song for her. It’s a massive rock ballad. To end the EP, we have ‘So Much Nothing’ and ‘Weatherman’. ‘So Much Nothing’ shows cases a bit of our grunge side, and tells a story of internal, mental struggles. It’s very raw.

The last song is a cover of one of our favorite songs to play live, ‘Weatherman’ by Dead Sara. All the songs have come from the combined lyrical effort of our drummer, Meghan, and lead singer, Sydney. Nicole, our bassist, and I handle the instrumental composition-well at least the string instruments, our drummer of course writes drum parts. Our writing process, especially within this EP, is very collective.

2-The EP was produced by Dave Ellefson and released on his EMP label, how was that for you?

Dave is a fantastic guy and we are so grateful for his involvement. EMP has been so great to us. The entire experience of recording and releasing the EP was such a unique and rewarding opportunity especially with Dave at the helm.

3-If you could open for any band, who would it be?

Hmmm that’s a tough question. As a band, we have such an eclectic mix of musical tastes, but if we had to choose, it would be Refused or Avenged Sevenfold. Even though our music is very different from both of theirs, we would take the opportunity to open for either of them in a heartbeat!

4-Describe Doll Skin in 5 words?

Energetic, unique, bold, colorful, and hard-hitting!

5-You are a relatively young band, will this affect your touring plans?

Since we are all still in high school, besides our drummer who is a freshman in college, we have all recently made the switch to online school so that we can travel with a much more flexible school schedule. Our schedule can be pretty sporadic but we love every bit of it!

Photos by Matt Watson

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