Skid Row’s ‘Subhuman Race’ Is Way Better Than You Remember

The ’90s were not kind to Skid Row.

The New Jersey rockers started the decade on a high note with their blistering sophomore album, Slave to the Grind, which debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 in 1991. But as grunge supplanted glam metal as the hard rock subgenre du jour, Skid Row took an extended hiatus to wait out the storm. When they reentered the studio in 1994 with Bob Rock (who replaced their previous producer, Michael Wagener) to begin work on Subhuman Race, the musical landscape looked vastly different than it had a few years earlier, and intraband relationships had started to fray.

This personnel shift, internal friction and industry-wide upheaval made a recipe for disaster. When Subhuman Race hit shelves on March 28, 1995, it was a shadow of its multiplatinum predecessors, stalling at No. 35 and failing to go gold. Sebastian Bach left the band on bad terms a year later, and the only thing he and his ex-bandmates have seemed to agree on in the intervening years is that the album sucks.

But what if they’re wrong?

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Skid Row’s ‘Subhuman Race’ Is More Than Copycat Grunge

True, Subhuman Race sounds almost nothing like its predecessors. But Skid Row, despite getting lumped in with the hair metal zeitgeist, was never a one-trick pony. Slave to the Grind was a drastic departure from the pop-metal preening of their self-titled debut (which still rocks, mind you), likely inspired by their rubbing elbows with Guns N’ Roses and Metallica. Likewise, Subhuman Race sounds like the work of a band that booked Soundgarden and Pantera as tour openers. Bassist Rachel Bolan and guitarist Dave “The Snake” Sabo were versatile songwriters who stayed cognizant of current musical trends, and Subhuman Race is an inspired take on the ’90s alternative boom.

Even if grunge did have a cohesive sonic identity (which it didn’t), Skid Row doesn’t sound like a copycat grunge band. “My Enemy” opens the album with grinding, down-tuned riffs and a muscular groove-metal stomp. “Firesign” leavens its alt-rock lump with shimmering, psychedelic guitars. The breakneck “Bonehead” betrays Bolan’s punk rock affinities, and the speed-metal title track is a logical extension of “Slave to the Grind.” The band even gets mildly progressive with the stutter-step rhythms of “Face Against My Soul.”

Songs like “Eileen” and “Into Another” admittedly borrow the “loud-quiet-loud” dynamics that Nirvana also lifted from Pixies. Still, even Subhuman Race‘s more derivative tracks remain interesting because of their solid hooks and Bach’s devastating vocals. This is not the same megawatt screamer who hit piercing high notes on “I Remember You” or “Livin’ on a Chain Gang” with stunning clarity. Bach sounds gruffer here, alternating between rage and sorrow, from the raspy screams of “Beat Yourself Blind” to the forlorn crooning on “Breakin’ Down.” His virtuosic performances are tempered with weariness; at age 26, Bach seems resigned that his commercial heyday is already behind him.

Listen to Skid Row’s ‘Beat Yourself Blind’

If there’s one shortcoming to Subhuman Race, it’s Rock’s brittle, dated production. In contrast to Wagener’s punchy, dynamic production on Skid Row’s first two albums, the drums here sound like tin cans, the guitars are ultra-trebly and there’s a conspicuous lack of low end. It sounds simultaneously expensive and bad — a precursor to the hi-fi trash sound Rock would “perfect” on Metallica’s notoriously dreadful-sounding St. Anger.

Subpar production can’t hide the solid songwriting and superb performances on Subhuman Race, though. It’s easy to see why Skid Row has disavowed the album, considering its commercial failure and its hastening of the classic lineup’s demise. But despite the unsavory circumstances of its creation, it’s well worth — to paraphrase the title track — jumpin’ into the Subhuman Race.