“I never considered myself a singer before now,” says Skinny Pelembe. Viewing his 2019 debut Dreaming Is Dead Now, which won glowing review, from a comfortable distance. On the sure-footed follow-up Hardly The Same Snake, now on eclectic Partisan Records (Fountains DC, Idles, Laura Marling…), he makes no such concessions. Visceral yet inherently soulful, the Album is the sound of the Johannesburg born, Doncaster-raised artist finally finding his voice – both literally and figuratively. The idea of forging your own path is integral to Hardly The Same Snake. Begun pre-pandemic and completed in the spring of 2021, it’s a defiantly outward-looking record contemplating family, religion and major life milestones, from parenthood to death. if this second album proves anything, it’s that it doesn’t matter how much Skinny errs on the side of self-deprecation – he remains one of the UK’s most fearlessly original voices.
