More Skin with Milk-Mouth sounds like being in the eye of a progressive math-rock tornado. Where their contemporaries produces fragmented patches of chaotic noise, Giraffes? Giraffes! find that spot in the middle where the storm-tossed debris miraculously arranges itself into a groovy fractal of a Boeing 747.
The album opens with a coked-up germaphobe reimagining of “Baba O’Reilly”’s introduction before scaling their sound back to a standard 4/4 two minute epic guitar solo, riddled with mistakes and some actual heart. The straight-up hardcore shredding, satisfyingly unique melodies, and groovy drum fills gives this otherwise forgettable or unapproachable side of technical rock a compelling and fresh perspective that demands to be listened to. This album is for anyone looking to dive into the world of math-rock; multiplying the rock without getting lost in the math.
The second track, “I Am S/H(im)e[r] As You Am S/H(im)e[r] As You Are Me and We Am I and I Are All Together: Our Collective Consciousness’ Psychogenic Fugue” is bookended by a riff that makes you think “is this slot machine trying to tell me I won or I need to get a life?” while throwing in that Alan Watts dream spiel that definitely sounded fresher in a pre-Black Mirror 2007.
“Emilee Sagee’s Secret” spends its first half building up to a tension-filled EDM (WITH CLAPS!!) drop only to tone it down to a chill little halloween jam, spooky chimes and all. The album closes with “A Quick One, While She’s Away” giving us a refresher of the previous twenty minutes of sounds through acid-rock colored glasses.
Skin expertly uses repetition and its complicated time signatures to lull the listener into a temporary sense of comfort; and while each of the instrumentations sync and repeat, they frequently and frantically leave the predicted trajectory of the song to remind the listener to pay the fuck attention to their hypersonic riffs, as if they’re cognitively complex enough to sentiently demand your attention. It can be as simple as having drum solos every four measures; or it can be a short trip to an ancient dimension, whispering truths in your dreams only to catapult you back to the maelstrom you had oddly grown so accustomed to. But what else does one expect from a band who took their name from a misinformation-filled children’s picture book? picture book!