REVIEW: Skinhead - It’s a Beautiful Day, What a Beautiful Day

Old punks, new tricks

22 minutes // June 20, 2025 // Closed Casket Activities

Skinhead are unserious about their seriousness, or is it the other way around? It seems these discreet old punks like to keep their audience guessing; scouring the internet for more intel won’t do you any good. I’m (mostly) convinced it’s all in good fun, but the rowdy bunch of degenerates put such relentless energy into their storytelling and performances on It’s a Beautiful Day, What a Beautiful Day that it’s almost hard not to believe their most morbid antics. Things get especially dark on the bouncy “Kill Yourself,” which intentionally goes too far with calls for violence, but feels oddly irresistible with its monster truck chorus. If it wasn’t for the vocalist, who sounds like he eats more stones for breakfast than The Rockbiter in The Neverending Story, it would be too easy to lump this band’s soaring rock approach alongside The Menzingers. The electrifying guitar bursts feel invitingly bright, giving a much-needed balance as one tries in vain to keep up with the vocalist’s raspy, breakneck delivery.

What’s surprising is, between the occasional home invasion or bashed skull, there’s some genuine nuances spread throughout the album’s themes. “Chuck” is an ode to a lost friend, a 90-second hardcore romp that begs the question: there’s got to be more to grief than a memorial tattoo, right? And closing track “That’s A Promise (The Song about a Dog)” is probably one of the most heartfelt songs ever written about a pet. As someone who recently buried my senior cat, it brought a sizable lump to my throat as I digested all the wistful lyrics. There’s no doubt It’s a Beautiful Day, What a Beautiful Day is a loud and intentionally obnoxious slab of melodic punk, but it’s clearly not just a brainless 20 minutes of noise. That doesn’t stop it from being entertaining as heck, though. Envisioning a bunch of sweaty, self-described scumbags crashing a restaurant and trying to stick each other with the bill on “Separate Checks” is more amusing than it probably should be. Skinhead are here to make us laugh, make us cry, and – above all – make us question our own taste in music. Who’s down?

8.5/10