I’m curious about Sky Kellogg. I listened through his catalog. I like the authenticity of his music plus he is not doing the same old alternative rock stuff. He is creative in his song writing and his arrangements and he knows how to rock out too. His ear, prolific style, and slightly off center eccentricities draw comparison…to no one currently on the scene for me. On his track, “Royal Rock C”, Sky borrows from his knowledge of electronic, blues, funk, indie, hip-hop and good old fashioned rock and roll, and then dips into his bag of inventiveness and has created an eclectic release. Sky Kellogg sounds like one of the more overt creatives in underground alternative music today, and he re-invents himself with every new track with more audio blends on every release.
Not very many can do that but still stay seriously grounded to who he is – a rocker with a conscience. Which is what the thought-out lyrics on “Royal Rock C” play testimony too. This track features an impressive array of organic sounding instruments which serve to cement Sky Kellogg as an important indie creator of rock and roll music in the modern era.
If you require computers to create your product, the human involvement in Sky’s music will leave you longing for the crap you would normally listen to. The stuff where auto-tune and software plugins dominate, and where guitars and drum kits have been reduced to sawdust in the digital void.
In the dark, desolate landscape of rock n’ roll, Sky Kellogg shines a bright light and reminds us that the genre and its affiliates are not dead yet. Fiery guitar, a pounding drum beat and resonating piano, all cascade through the song, as Sky reminds us just how talented he really is.
He of course, he bathes everything with his soaring vocal intonations, while drawing on his classic rock influences for this record, but be prepared for a few twists and turns as his alternative and urban influences emerge, in a good way. Sky is a positive force, for those of us who love rock n’ roll music, as he manages to infuse it into a number of styles.
Even as rock finds its horizons shrinking and its motor starting to splutter, artists like Sky Kellogg are still manipulating the tools available to him – particularly the power-tool guitar – to try and turn up the revs. That’s very much by design, as you might imagine from a musician as intentional as Sky is.
His fire and brimstone arrangement on “Royal Rock C” has a swaggering backbeat which becomes a cacophony of drums, guitar and piano that barrels along without restraint. Lyrically, Sky focuses on the commodification of modern society and how it’s a crying shame. This is a ride you don’t want to miss, if you’re tired of computer generated music.
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