Artist: Skindred
Title: Union Black
Genre: Alternative Metal
Release Date: 5th August 2011
Label: 7PM / BMG
Album Review
Though they are registered as an Alternative Metal band, SKINDRED, would be more accurate to be described as a Nu-Reggae band. And if by Reggae the thing that comes to mind is the pretentious boring idiom of cool life with tons of joints and beers as if it is sponsored by the Jamaican drug lords you’d be mistaken. For many bands one can claim that they are in a league of their own, for few it would be so close to truth. SKINDRED is one of them. Formed by Benji Webbe, (ex DUB WAR) the band kept the Reggae aspect in its original form of polemics against the status quo. The addition of the Nu Metal elements and sound came as an almost natural choice as it adds the proper levels of aggression and over-the-top irony to the songs.
The mocking within the homonymous ‘Union Black’ is just sublime, for they take the British National Anthem and they tear it to the pieces. And after they’ve settled the score with the authorities they present the social inequalities within the UK with full force. Their UK is not the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Cornish pastries, the Big Ben and the boring homogenous British countryside. It is music for the most depraved areas of the UK struck by high unemployment, low wages and no particular future. And it is this dead-end that concerns the band the most without falling to the usual pit of bombastic moral sermons.
And they have the musical means to express it. Their sound - at times cool at others angry with hard riffs and astonishing bridges between the parts of the songs - lingers as I aforesaid between Nu metal and reggae, forcing you to listen, pushing you to jump up and down, to be engaged and involved with it throughout. Their attitude at once serious brings with it as well a tremendous sense of enjoyment and vitality; it just doesn’t fail to fire you up inside and out. What to say? It’s a fantastic album that you’d be a complete fool to miss out on.
Tracklist
01. Union Black – 1:10
02. Warning – 3:50
03. Cut Dem – 3:51
04. Doom Riff – 3:48
05. Living A Lie – 4:26
06. Guntalk – 4:01
07. Own You – 3:32
08. Make Your Mark – 3:41
09. Get It Now – 4:58
10. Bad Man Ah Bad Man – 3:30
11. Death To All Spies – 5:05
12. Game Over – 4:09
Line-up
Benji Webbe — Vocals
Daniel Pugsley — Bass
Micheal Fry — Guitar, Backing vocals
Arya Goggin — Drums
Websites
http://www.skindred.net/
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 8
Sound: 9
Total: 8.5 / 10
Comments powered by CComment