image courtesy of Spaur Music PR

Single Review of Skipping Stone: “Grace”

Louisville-based Skipping Stone delivers a memorable soaring, heavy alt-rock tune in “Grace.” The power is evident, even if it’s mostly restrained – barely, at times – remaining largely-controlled in deference to the song’s steady, almost inevitable/unstoppable beat.

photo courtesy of Spaur Music PR

The band’s lineup for this song is Chris Bindner (vocals, keys), Joshay Wright (drums), Thomas Hicks (guitar, vocals), and Kelly Hood (guitar), with Jordan Bailey (bass) making a guest appearance.

Back to the song, though, something about the opening of “Grace” recalls for me “Billowy and Broken,” a powerful Lucid Fly rock song. However, while Lucid Fly bends its dark, foreboding tone toward heavy-prog, Skipping Stone’s “Grace” branches out from its contemplative, steady, dark beat toward the heavy rock anthem direction. “Grace”‘s slow tempo allows it to slowly build to power, as it most certainly does, extending the build for most of the song’s five-plus minutes of runtime. As the song reaches its final stages, a little heavy metal-ish growl creeps into the vocals, adding to the power structure in the final ramp-up of “Grace.” Beginning to end, the song has an arena rock feel, big enough to fill a stadium… with angst, I suppose, but it’d be a stadium full of angst.

If you like powerful, slow-build metal (or power rock), you need to hear Skipping Stone’s “Grace.”