SKINNY PUPPY

It was in Canada, way back in 1983, that cEvin Key and Nivek Ogre joined forces to produce their first statement on life and society. Ogre was going through a bad time and in his depression he wrote a track "Canine", a look at the world from a dog's view. It was from this track that the premise of Skinny Puppy came about. They privately made a demo tape titled Back And Forth and used this to promote themselves. The Canadian label Nettwerk heard the tape and became very interested in the band.

Their first release was in 1984 and it was the mini album Remission, a social statement made up of six tracks. In the following year they released their first proper album, Bites, this one containing eight tracks. The albums were licensed to Europe through the Play It Again Sam label.

Wilhelm Schroeder who had helped on the first two albums was replaced by Dwayne Goettel and Dave Ogilvie who had helped previously with production became a permanent member of the band. The pattern was now set, for each and every year to follow Skinny Puppy would always get together and record a new album.

With the next album, Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse, Nettwerk made a licensing agreement with Capitol records for Skinny Puppy's material to get distribution outside of Canada. The main target area was America and Nettwerk themselves set up Nettwerk Europe for the major European countries. However British releases were through Capitol.

After the Cleanse, Fold And Manipulate album Skinny Puppy were set to become even more inwardly intense and harder of character. Vivisect VI was the start of their conceptual analysis of society's covert and inhumane doctrines.

Vivisect VI was an album that attacked the cruel world of vivisection and its parallells with the humanistic vices of the state. Gone are the comparably nice tracks of the early albums and in their place are harsher, more demanding attacks on your conscience. This album impales the skewer deep within you and it is twisted savagely to make you listen and learn. Skinny Puppy were never to look back.

Vivisect VI was followed in 1989 by Rabies and this album dealt more with humanity's insanities and imperfections. The wrong doings of the state are detailed for you to see the truth. Even the album's title passes comment on what Skinny Puppy are trying to tell you.

Too Dark Park was the next album and this album appeared to hold more coherence than the last two. All their previous albums had held messages of current analysis. Too Dark Park begins to reveal glimpses of a future as told by Skinny Puppy. The album grinds into you, increasing in intensity, until the last track "Reclamation" quickly builds to something that is deeply and horribly foreboding.

Skinny Puppy's new prophetical insights appear to have shaped their latest album Last Rights. This latest offering explodes into your subconscious with the same power as connecting your brain directly to a wall socket. The music provides a sudden jolt to your sodden synapses that is like an electric shock scrambling your brain patterns. If you're not careful with this it could fry your brains instantly.

Somewhere within all this insanity of psychological and sociological problems lie some real meanings. This music is as close as you're going to get to total insanity with rational thought. No doubting Toms here, just the answers to your worst nightmares. Skinny Puppy like to hang you on the edge of an abyss and let you writhe as you view the fate that awaits below you. The louder you listen the looser your grip becomes.

Reality is thrown to the winds as the last track "Download" depicts the horrifying and climatic conclusion of mankind. The overloading of humanity takes its final toll and some kind of total destruction wipes us from existence. Electrical components along with the human race breakdown, stutter and die as the "eleventh hour" is approached. (That is possibly why there is no track ten and the reason why the track is exactly eleven minutes and one second long.) At the last possible moment you are flung into frenzied destruction until suddenly you are vaporised to your component atoms and are lost to the four corners of the globe. Desolation land is here and the final hour as come. Your last rights? Forget it! In this situation you don't have a lawyer.

Lovers of Skinny Puppy's music should note that almost all of their singles have unreleased material or exclusive mixes on them. Even when 1990 saw the Canadian release of the compilation album 12" Anthology not all the tracks from the singles were included on this album and so the singles are still collectable. The singles are also worth collecting simply for the great artwork on the sleeves. The 12" Anthology album was mass produced and heavily from Canada and imported into most countries. The band did not release any new material in 1991, instead they released a live album Ain't It Dead Yet? This recording was also given a VHS video release in Canada. Please note that if you want this video it is in the NTSC format and will not play on your British PAL video recorder.

Canada have also released the Bites And Remission CD which is different to the European one and includes the very rare tracks "Film", "Glass Out", "Ice Breaker", "Christianity" and "Social Deception". Other anolmalies include the different artowrk on the LP of Too Dark Park to the CD sleeve and the differences in sleeve artwork for the US and Canadian releases of Last Rights and "Inquisition".

Skinny Puppy's discography is somewhat complex. The problems arise because there are four areas of pressings. The first is obviously Canada, Skinny Puppy's home country. Secondly there is the US, thirdly Europe and finally Britain. (Why does Britain always have to be so awkward?)

There have been area specific releases from each of these locations. Virtually all the singles originate from the US and Canada and albums come from all four areas.