Animic – Skin lp (Vinyl)

Anímic – Skin lp

There is no doubt that Anímic's new movement will be interpreted by some as an attack on the loyal relationship between the band and its followers... While the vast majority will interpret it more for what it really is: an opportunity de oro to renew vows of fidelity with a formation capable of breaking the deck even after the sprint that their last two albums, “Hannah” and “Hannibal” entailed. The question is on the table: Anímic's new album, “Skin”, is a change, a compliment, a transformation. But it is one of those mutations in which it does not matter that you (almost) cannot recognize the body, because the soul speaks to you so loud and clear from inside the flesh that in the end that is what counts. The easy thing would be to say that they have gone over to electronic music and that there is nothing left of the Anímic that it was so easy to imagine as a group playing in the bright clearing of a forest bursting with powerful greens and fresh air... But that would be oversimplify things. With their last two albums, the band had already invited us into the darkest parts of the forest, where day gave way to night, the air smelled of menace, and green turned into black that pulsated to the sound of a powerful, urgent heart, with a thousand faces. In “Skin”, plain and simple, they continue to explore those same shadows but with a flashlight that emits a surprising new light. The magic is still present in the album as it has always been present in everything the band has released. How else to explain that inexplicable but delicious feeling of listening to Anímic no matter how much your head is telling you that this sounds at the antipodes of what it was (and should be)?

This new sound could be traced in settings of distant songs like “Kent Forest” or in belligerent attacks like that of the impressive “Shoot’em Up” that closed “Hannibal” like a string of machine gun shots. But who needs to trace the past when you're faced with a present and a future that shines with such furious brilliance? In “Skin” there are stabs of pure electric and electrified techno on the still hot body of what once was the band. This is how, for example, “TV” and “Glass” sound.