Richard Jobson may be the only original member left standing in first wave Scottish post-punkers, the Skids’ line up. But almost 45 years on from the release of their debut album, Sacred to Dance, the band is again pumping out anthemic rockers in the same vein as when they first started out.
Original guitarist, Stuart Adamson is sadly long gone but Bruce Watson from Adamson’s post-Skids group, Big Country, has picked up the torch from his former band mate. “Open Your Eyes” and “Tidal Wave” particularly see him standing confidently in Adamson’s shoes, banging out the riffs and lending his voice to the football terrace choruses.
“Here We Go”, “How to be Free” and the title track – in fact, pretty much the whole album – are clearly cast from the same mould as the band’s anthemic singles “Working for the Yankee Dollar” and the magnificent “Into the Valley”, from their first go-round. But Jobson’s voice is also still in fine shape, Watson’s riffs are full of spirit and the rhythm section of Gil Allan and Nick Hernandez provide plenty of heft to keep things moving along.
Make no mistake, Destination Düsseldorf is filler-free and no pale imitation of past glories. In fact, fans from that time will be hard pushed to notice any distinct change in their sound from the late seventies. Even, “Things We’ve Seen”, a musical trip around Berlin, which has a substantial flavouring of Bowie’s Low album, is a reflection of that city in those days and tells tales of running into the Thin White Duke himself, Lou Reed, William Burroughs and other counter-cultural heroes. Not that there is anything wrong with that at all. After all, there are plenty of other parallels within wider society between then and now during these difficult days. And that is far more disconcerting.
