Vince Leigh’s Single Review: Skin and Bones by The Burbs
By Vince Leigh (Ex drummer of Pseudo Echo, Tina Arena and John Farnham) of Australian Radio Promotion for Sheldon Ang Media
On Skin and Bones, The Burbs aren’t just releasing a song; they’re throwing down a gauntlet, daring anyone listening to feel every twisted word and frayed note. This isn’t a polished, radio-friendly track with a few ‘edgy’ flourishes—no, it’s a raw, searing slice of grit from the farthest corners of Australia, as unfiltered as a lungful of cigarette smoke and just as potent. Danny Valitutti, Peri Brown, and Brook Mckeon have crafted something primal here, something that grabs you by the throat and keeps its grip. Skin and Bones opens with a deceptively clean guitar riff, a mirage on the edge of a desert, but just as you start to settle in, the rhythm section comes in like a sledgehammer to the spine.
Valitutti’s vocals? He doesn’t just sing; he spits, he howls, he cuts through lines like ‘And you drank the summer / So you can’t feel the rain’ with the defiant snarl of someone who knows all too well the double-edged nature of escape and destruction. He’s not just emoting—he’s dragging you into the mud with him. This is music that doesn’t ask for permission; it’s in your face, hammering at your chest, daring you to keep listening. The rhythm section—Brown and Mckeon—doesn’t just support the track; it’s alive, pounding with the kind of primal urgency that makes Skin and Bones a heartbeat, a live wire straining at the edges of its own intensity. And then, just when you think you’ve felt everything, the guitar solo crashes in—a banshee wail that feels like it’s tearing the air apart, anchoring a bridge that’s as brutal as it is breathtaking. The Burbs aren’t interested in revival, nostalgia, or imitating rock gods of the past.
No, Skin and Bones is proof they’re forging something else, something entirely their own—a mythology that lives on grit, blood, and bone-deep talent. In a world where rock’s been sanitized and polished within an inch of its life, here’s a bruised anthem for those still brave enough to bleed. The Burbs have thrown out the rulebook, shoved genre conventions to the sidelines, and brought rock back to the visceral, dangerous, and gloriously defiant beast it once was and still can be.
