Single Review - Skint and Demoralised - Red Lipstick - Noize Makes Enemies

Skint and Demoralised are made up of Matt Abbott, a twenty-year-old spoken word lyricist from Wakefield, alongside producer MiNi dOg who provides the beats to accompany Abbot’s endearing Northern twang.

Their debut single, ‘Red Lipstick’, is a quirky three minute ode to a schoolboy crush that Abbott found via his misspent social networking youth. A girl whose delightfully low maintenance attitude to life (liking no more than “Red lipstick/ Fish and chips/ Orange juice/ And trips to the seaside”) prompted Matt to put pen to paper to celebrate this seemingly rare find.

Whilst, this debut single might not have all the hard hitting erudite accuracy of partnerships such as Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, Abbott’s innate likeability seems to gloss over that as his singing voice, not unlike Richard Archer (of Hard Fi), bounces over the upbeat chorus of ‘Red Lipstick’.

This lack of depth to the debut single is also by no means illustrative of Skint and Demoralised’s other work, which delves into the social conscious; with Abbott’s vocal disapproval of the BNP and their election in his hometown and his back catalogue of work with Love Music Hate Racism.

Having played Glastonbury and with Bestival, Latitude, Reading and Wireless all to come, as well as a debut album due in October which is likely to be a better representation of the duo’s capabilities, Skint and Demoralised look set to make their mark this year, even if ‘Red Lipstick’ does not showcase the depths of the pair as much as fans may have liked. Abbott looks set for success, and it couldn’t happen to someone anymore down-to-earth and likeable.