Skip the Use took their time. After a break of over two years, they are coming back with a new album: Love & Anxiety, set to be released on April 24. Skip the Use will be performing at the Tendance Live event at the Zénith in Rouen on April 10. “We like to challenge ourselves, reinvent ourselves, think of new things, and it’s complicated to do when you’re constantly releasing albums and touring,” says frontman Mat Bastards, who is part of the group along with Yan Stefani, Enzo Gabert, and Nelson Martins. “We also went back to real life, reconnected with many things to take the time to make an album and question ourselves.”
Love & Anxiety, two entities
A change in the way of working, the album has been a reinvention. Everyone contributed, where Mat Bastards and Yann Stefani were the main creative forces until now. “It was interesting to have other points of view. In the album, two or three songs come from Enzo, one comes from Nelson… Then, we all work together on the tracks.” The first single from this new album, “We Are Good,” already widely broadcast on Tendance Ouest, echoes the band’s global success with “Ghost” released in 2012, both musically and in its message. Mat Bastards describes, “I wrote this song thinking, what would the four little girls we recorded at the time who were ten years old want to tell us?” Always firmly focused on youth, the singer wonders if this youth has enough of a voice, if they have been given a chance to speak. “Have we allowed them to express themselves? I don’t think so. Today, it’s difficult for them to project themselves.” The album, very rock, mixes all influences and showcases all the talents of Skip the Use, comfortable in hardcore like “The Distorter,” reggae dub like “Anxiety,” and even rap in the collaboration with Shayne, the winner of Netflix’s “Nouvelle École” reality show on “Bull.” Funk and electro influences are also present. The group, managing all their productions, creates music that is meaningful to them in the moment, in search of freshness and renewal not guided by the mainstream. “For us, the destination is the most important. Music is just a means. And we like to collaborate with those who make music for the same reasons as us.” The album is to be listened to in one go, with the two entities that coexist: Love and Anxiety, conversing even in the interlude. “Human relationships are determined by these two things, the amount of love and anxiety in a relationship,” explains Mat, who originally wanted to title each track with a percentage of love and a percentage of anxiety. “That’s what we wanted to put into music and turn into an album.”
“What can we expect on April 10 at Tendance Live with Skip the Use? Limitless energy on stage. “We don’t like to plan too much, we’re into improvisation! We’ll see what the audience wants, and we’ll do it, even better!” enthuses Mat Bastards. As for the invitation from Tendance Ouest? “When we are invited and can perform our music, we are happy! It’s a chance to have Tendance Ouest supporting us, we love it! It’s also an opportunity to meet people, and we make music for that reason!” We are excited too.
