Skin Yard

(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

Among the first Seattle bands to play “grunge” were Skin Yard, led by guitarist Jack Endino.

Their first self-titled album (C/Z, 1986) coined a bold language, combining the emphatic heavy metal of tracks like Epitaph For Yesterday with instrumental arrangements far more tense and intricate than average (the instrumental Scratch), marrying the dark, neurotic atmospheres of the Swans (The Blind Leading The Blind by bassist David House, founder of C/Z) with the icy, shadowy tones of Black Sabbath (Reptile by drummer Matt Cameron, future Soundgarden). Overall, the album’s leaden, frigid sound places it among the most challenging works of rock avant-garde.

Sandwiched between the singles Gelatin Babies (C/Z) and Start At The Top (SubPop), their second album Halloweed Ground (Toxic Shock) was released in 1988, a much more extroverted work in which the inhuman heavy metal of the first album is softened by more human rock ’n’ roll, as in the title track, or accentuated in even more granite-like harmonic structures, as in Stranger. The instrumental OP4 and the psychedelic delirium G.O.D., marginal episodes, are actually the only ones introducing a diversion, which however does not alleviate the limited communicability of this music.

In 1990, while the band delved into the theatricality of Fist-Sized Chunks (Cruz), with psychodramas such as Ritual Room and Gentle Collapse (Barrett Martin having taken over on drums), Endino released his solo album, Angle Of Attack (Bobok), a sort of manifesto and personal testament to the art of creating impactful music. This was the beginning of a career that continued with Endino's Earthworm (Cruz, 1992), alongside House, Rob Skinner (of Coffin Break), and others from the scene: the suite Suspension Of Disbelief indulges in a jazz-grunge experiment, while How Much Time, Talk Yourself Blind, and American Nightmare Revisited are among the best pieces of his recent output.

Meanwhile, singer Ben McMillan recorded with Gruntruck, the band he formed with guitarist Tom Niemeyer (of the Accused), also under Endino’s guidance. From Inside Yours (Empty, 1990), featuring the title track (one of the best grunge jams) and Not A Lot To Save, to Push (Roadracer, 1992), with Above Me, Crazy Love, and Tribe (the three tracks that made them famous), the band carried on the mission of Skin Yard: an abrasive, austere, solemn, complex sound leaving little room for emotion. Both albums were later collected on the double CD Inside Yours / Push (Metal Mind Productions, 2010).

The last Skin Yard albums, 1000 Smiling Knuckles (Cruz, 1991) and Inside The Eye (1993), nonetheless added nothing new to the story of this cerebral heavy metal.

Without Jack Endino, grunge might never have existed. His influence, first as a guitarist and later as a producer, is incalculable. Skin Yard, however, never managed to transcend the mediocrity of a generic abstraction of heavy “machismo.”