Skye Wallace - Coal In Your Window
Toronto’s Skye Wallace just released a new single/music video, called “Coal In Your Window.” The song is from her forthcoming self-titled album, slated to drop June 7.
Skye Wallace | Photo: James Burrows
According to Wallace, “I wrote this song in a building in Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland that used to be an old cottage hospital (Bonne Bay Cottage Hospital/Julia Ann Walsh Heritage Center). It was inspired by a story I heard about one of the young folks that used to work in the hospital and the boy that would throw coal at her window at night to beckon her down to their meeting place in the boiler room.”
Wallace, whose voice Noisey described as “like colliding fireworks filled with the thirst of lovers," started out as a classically trained vocalist. Then she encountered punk rock, which infected her like the plague and caused massive side-effects, like writing “music that makes you feel excited.”
Initially, Wallace’s sound was what commentators called “dark folk,” but now seems to have gravitated to brawny pop-punk. Personally, I find her punk-infused music to be much more captivating.
Then she encountered punk rock, which infected her like the plague and caused massive side-effects, like writing “music that makes you feel excited.”
“Coal In Your Window” opens on buff growling guitars full of hefty energy. The harmonics are raw and visceral, eschewing the sonic manipulations of digital cleansing. Wallace’s voice projects flavors of supercharged bedlam, snarling on grimacing timbres giving the lyrics a tight stinging savor, as well as a gritty texture.
The lyrics deliver the tasty wicked zest of forbidden love and lust.
“I threw a coal in your window / Oh I whipped it from the back, yeah / It’s been seven nights since I could hold you tight and I / I can’t wait another second / Ooh, they are gonna find us out, girl / Ooh, they are gonna find us, no no no / Ooh, they are gonna find us out, girl / So meet me in the back, girl!”
“Coal In Your Window” radiates riot grrrl vocal tones riding on dirty, seething guitars underscored by a contagious badass rhythm.
