Album Review -- Artist: CANTEEN KNOCKOUT, Title: (self-titled), Label: HYPER-INTELLIGENCE, Produced by: ANDRE SKINNER and MARK DOUCET, Year of release: 2003

A debut 5-song EP by CANTEEN KNOCKOUT, Toronto group fronted by ex-POPE FACTORY drummer Andre Skinner. Review by Mark Anderson.

(PRWEB) December 21, 2003 --From Andre Skinner, Toronto percussion busker fixture and former skins beater for Queen Street West staples like the (now defunct) moody anti-scenesters POPE FACTORY and the (still together) sex obsessed beats-smiths hip-hop improv rock pranksters SLIT SLOT, comes a 5-song EP under the moniker CANTEEN KNOCKOUT.

The more-versatile-than-we-think Skinner unexpectedly pulls a "Dave Grohl" on us and comes out back from behind the drum kit, sporting a guitar and a confident attitude, fronting a 4-piece combo offering us some no-nonsense singer/songwriter style grass-roots rawk tinged with blues, grunge, and even a bit of country.

The album, although a bit too bold for a first tryout (with its experimentation --especially when "EPs" usually stick to the "one style" and play it safe), Skinner arguably can emerge as a survivor in pushing this particular envelope. The mini-album has two rather strong straight-ahead, radio-friendly, strum-happy rockers "BENT OUT OF SHAPE" and "HANGERS," used as bookends (songs which would make Tom Petty proud), --these kinds of song stylings obviously being the band's signature sound, with the middle tracks slipping into different genres: like the somewhat magical, Lanois-esque, slow, swampy slide blues lament called "BLUE GIRL", that, if listened to the "right way", can literally take over your nervous system and immobilize you from the song's opening bars.

Skinner and producer Mark Doucet perform the old "powerful restraint" exercise for the album's most elaborate studio track "PLANE", which moves along plodding like an elephant to a Kurt Cobain-like singing delivery and a slow build of layering, taking the song from the "simple" to the (fortunately still low-rent) epic proportions, making the song sound both small and big.

Undoubtedly, the album's hardest rocking moments come in "CHORDS RING", which features ANJULIE performing the duet vocal, adding a silky sexiness to the track's guitar wall-of-sound. A wall sounding as if Phil Spector had been born in Seattle and had never left his hometown. Although cruelly abbreviated before its time, the song does close with an effective SPACE ODDITY-like guitar solo that satifies.

Good lyrics and a timeless feel throughout. Nice effort from the city's busiest drummer. Fans of music by the CASH BROTHERS and JASON COLLETT will feel they are spoken to here.

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