Damien Morris 

Skinny Pelembe: Hardly the Same Snake review – hits and misses

The Doncaster genre-hopper has plenty of good ideas but can’t quite marshal them into a compelling whole
  
  

Skinny Pelembe lying down on grass
‘Love of wandering instrumental passages’: Skinny Pelembe. Photograph: Sophie Jouvenaar

Doncaster experimentalist Skinny Pelembe is precisely the type of act that should thrive in our streaming age, when listeners enjoy genre-hopping more than ever. Brought up imbibing Afrobeat, bossa nova, rock, dub, country, hip-hop and more, he has never shied away from decanting everything he has absorbed into his music. It’s just that, as with his 2019 debut, Dreaming Is Dead Now, he can’t quite marshal his many decent ideas into a compelling whole.

The singles Don’t Be Another and Like a Heart Won’t Beat are both strong, particularly the latter’s use of piano and rushing percussion, hurrying along to an explosively sudden ending. Elsewhere, moments spark then fail to catch fire. Oh, Silly George pokes you sharply by starting “I think it’s time we emigrate, feel like an intruder/ Hate it here on match day anyway”, then doesn’t develop any further perceptive thoughts on belonging and exclusion. Although Pelembe has recently spoken of having more confidence in his more-than-adequate voice, he often chooses to layer or distort it. Added to his love of wandering instrumental passages, buried choruses and self-sampling, the overall effect can be quite distancing. It feels like there’s better work to come.

Watch the video for Like a Heart Won’t Beat.
 

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