Released on May 6, the second album from Skipping Girl Vinegar is starting to attract plenty of attention from it's incredibly packaged CD version, and critical acclaim due to it's truly great songs. This great review from Jeff Jenkins appeared in todays' Inpress..

MONKEY BUSINESS
"Where do you go when the heart breaks?"
When a friend heard Skipping Girl Vinegar's new album, she was stunned. "What's happened to the fun-loving guys and gals of Skipping Girl Vinegar?" she asked Howzat! "Have they all grown up since the last album, broken up with their girlfriends/boyfriends?" It's a fair question. The new album, Keep Calm, Carry The Monkey (out now on Popboomerang), is deeper and darker than the band's debut. Sure, it opens with a song called Chase The Sun and starts with some "la la las", but looks are deceptive. This is a beach song where the undercurrent is dark, and danger lurks beneath the surface. Later in the song, Mark Lang reveals, "I was lost, I was lost". The rest of the album sees him trying to find himself.

Howzat! had SGV pegged as a summer band. But suddenly it's winter. Keep Calm, Carry The Monkey is the sound of a band on a desperate search for meaning in a changing, confused world. "Want to be in real time," Mark sings, "social networks cold/I'm just looking for a hand to hold." The conclusion (a beautiful piece with Ron Sexsmith on backing vocals) is that "in the end, love's all that you have". It's probably true. But the journey has been so unsettling that initially you're not sure of anything. "What do you do in the moment?" All you know is you want to play the record again.

SGV are not afraid to rock out - Hand To Hold and Hell Out Of Town sound like they're having nights out with Nick Cave and Wagons - but Keep Calm, Carry The Monkey is deep and dark. And it will haunt you. It's an album of layers, but none of the songs outstays its welcome. No track is longer than 3.30, and eight of the 12 cuts clock in under three minutes. No flab, all fab. Album of the year? It's going to be hard to top.

Skipping Girl Vinegar launch the album at the Arts Centre's Fairfax Studio on June 4.

JEFF JENKINS Inpress