S.K.o.R – Rebus Tellus

8/10

S.K.o.R is a quartet that has its origin in Stockholm. S.K.o.R stands for ”Some Kind of Rubus”. Rubus is latin and stands for a large and diverse group of roses.

The band started in 2006 by the vocalist and band leader Emil Gammeltoft (who recently sang on the former Nazareth guitarist Manny Charltons new project No Boarderz). S.K.o.R started out as a Swedish folkrock band and has released a couple of EP:s and a full-length album in that kind of music, but has since 2015 felt the feel for a much more heavy and rockier sound. You hear that Emil has a lot of Bon Scott of AC/DC feel over his voice.
Rebus Tellus is a very diversed album. It sounds like something from the glam scene meeting AC/DC. Imagine Martin Gordon´s playfulness meets AC/DC´s razor edge heavy riffs.

I love the playfulness with which they created a lot of the songs, like ‘Bubbleman’, ‘Mystify’, ‘Karate girl’, ‘Blue collar girl’ and ‘Kamikaze’, just to mention a few. There is a hook in those songs that makes it almost impossible to not get involved.

The first song on the album is an instrumental piece ‘Rebus Tellus’ that I think is fun and interesting, with lots of sounds and a lot of tempo changes, but for me it gets a bit out of place when I compare it to the rest of the songs. I believe most of the songs would do better with a bit less of Emils´ Bon Scott vocals.

I must admit, I do have a sweet spot for this Martin Gordonesqe (the ex bass player of Sparks among others) solowork. I just really love these kind of songs with the playfulness that almost go to the infantile, because it makes the songs hook incredibly strong and almost impossible not to start air-drumming away to. Just try listening to ‘Hippo’, ‘Kamikaze’ or ‘Karate Girl’ and try to sit still. It´s almost impossible.

Emil Gammeltofts´ voice is very good as it is, which he shows in a lot of places in this album, though I reckon that his Bon Scott sound is a big part of the bands´ expression. However part of the songs would gain on less of the vocalists´ Bon Scott voice. With that said, there are a lot of places were his Bon Scott voice works just excellent. For example on the bluesdripping rocker ‘Hell to pay’ and the more rockier ‘Cuckold and the hotwife’. just to mention a few.

Band: S.K.o.R (Some Kind of Rubus)
Titel: Rebus Tellus
Releasedate: 2018-08-17
Label: GMR Music Group
Time: 42:09 Min
Rate: 8/10
Stand out song: Kamikaze