Sister/all-girl bands have been taking over recently; we have HAIM and Hinds, just to name a few. We also have lots of duos — Twenty One Pilots, The Black Keys… but the combination of both categories can create something unbelievably great.
Sister duo Larkin Poe bring something newer and edgier to the table with their album Reskinned. It’s been forever since we’ve heard or seen a truly great rock band with the edginess and imagery able to pull off the sound, but Larkin Poe have all of that. The album opens with a song titled “Sucker Puncher” which is just that, a (metaphorical) punch in the face, hitting you with exactly what’s to come afterwards — fuzzy vocals, guitars that really go hard, and lyrics about the rockstar lifestyle that will make you want to grab a leather jacket and dye your hair blue.
The album then leads to some truly great, catchy tracks such as “Trouble in Mind”, which sounds like a crossover between Elle King’s “Ex’s and Oh’s” and The Black Keys’ “Lonely Boy”, which is perhaps the best combination possible. “Jailbreak” and “Blunt” are great tracks to sing and sway along to.
In the same vein as “Sucker Punch” heard earlier, we have some tracks that are truly, straight-up rock. The guitars and their loud ruthlessness make you want to scream and bash everything; this can be seen on tracks such as “P-R-O-B-L-E-M” where the loud electric guitar really shines and makes the track, and “Don’t” which is reminiscent of an early Joan Jett.
Although this is a rock album, we see a softer side to Larkin Poe on “Banks of Allatoona”, where the singer sings in a much softer tone with the background music much more toned down than on the earlier tracks. In an album like this, it’s nice to take a break from the constant loud guitars and listen to a song that’s easy on the ears. This type of sound is also heard on “Crown of Fire” with the electric guitar completely replaced with an acoustic one. Larkin Poe know their way around instruments and know how to use them to their advantage, and it definitely doesn’t hurt that each member of the band can play multiple, unique instruments that bring many different sounds to this album.
The album ends on a soft note with quiet vocals and a piano on “Overachiever”. After going through this album and beginning and ending with such different songs, Reskinned feels like an experience that everyone needs to feel.
Reskinned is released on April 15th. You can pre-order it on iTunes here.
- Today in Music History: April 7 - April 7, 2023
- EP Review: Michigander’s It Will Never Be The Same - March 31, 2023
- Deep Dive: Spotify’s ALT NOW Playlist - March 30, 2023
