Skullcrusher – Words Come Back Review

For some, words do not come back. It is arguable Skullcrusher, not the band but the label provided to those who crush skulls, would render the crushed without their words. Still, trivial details like this are for music journalists who are fresh out of the shower after an unwashed week tapping away at a broken keyboard hooked up to IV drips of Tassimo flat whites. Life in the fast lane such as this is always soundtracked by constant music as it keeps the tinnitus at bay. Words Come Back, this cover of The Hated song, yes – that emo number with a few thousand listeners still circling the drain on Spotify – works wonderfully. Helen Ballentine manoeuvres around the pitfalls of adaptation and brings on a similar intensity.  

The punk crunch of The Hated is long gone and replaced instead by an unnerving, off-kilter tension. Dan Littleton, Erik Fisher, Colin Meeder and Mike Bonner could never – though their initial offering is still intact and ruptures the ears and melts the brain as all good punk should. Move on to Skullcrusher then, whose harsher name opens the door to softer responses to this legendary material. Peace can be found in the thump and grind of punk’s glory days – it was the aim after all. The Sex Pistols and their ilk all rallied against the machine of war and wanted tranquillity in their anti-establishment method. Though this feverish adrenalin is sucked out of Words Come Back, the replacement is the slower and studied pace Skullcrusher presents the song.  

Brushes with psychedelic folk, whatever that means, tear Words Come Back a new one. Words do come back – eventually this sense of belonging and articulation returns. Even in the collapsed and worthless days where it could not get much worse even if it tried, there is still a concerted sense of belonging. Skullcrusher includes this placid sense of worth nicely, the rustles of nature and the windy, hollow expanse craft a fitting finality to the last few seconds of this one. Beauty in the brilliance of The Hated is changed into a tender experience – a fitting clash of attitudes which drives Words Come Back from an intense collection of compounded fears to the raw and near-melancholic drive it has here under Skullcrusher.  

Jitled, crushing and powerful, the often shaky sub-genre of covers is gifted a real winner of a track. Words Come Back is a clear and refreshing example of how music, particularly the lyrics, can transcend a genre and be moved by the flow of a different pace or beat. It is exceptional workings from Skullcrusher which manage this – everything down to the context and the mood set on this track, the interjections of natural sound and the scuffed elongation of her words – is incredible. By and large one of the better punk covers of the last few years, and it is more due to how the material and message are managed. Not updated, but changed, certainly. Rhythms are moved and lyrics maintained to craft this aware and blissful piece of sobering importance.