Nearly three decades since they set themselves up as the most reliable party-starting collective in UK rock, Skindred’s recorded output still feels a little on the underrated side. Great live band? Sure, you hear it all the time. Creator of great albums? That’s something they don’t get quite get the praise for that they deserve.
Everyone knows that every new ’Dred album is going to be some kind of hook-laden amalgam of metal riffs, arena-rock bounce and ragga-spitting vocals from frontman Benji Webbe. Of course, a bunch of new songs will fit seamlessly into their live set alongside all the classics and the Newport Helicopter. These things are a given. But if you really dive into Skindred’s back catalogue, you’ll discover a group of fantastically talented songwriters, with much more guile and command of songcraft than they’re usually given credit for.
You Got This is a prime example of their growth as a band. Nine albums in, that classic, unique Skindred sound is still present and correct, but the pure pop influences the band have leaned into since 2018’s Big Tings have resulted in what will surely be one of the year’s most instantaneous, joyous, technicolour listens.
The opening title track comes complete with a grooving riff from guitarist Mikey Demus, a booming, stomping rhythm from drummer Arya Goggin, and Benji delivering a chorus that will set up residency in your brain, claim squatters’ rights and refuse to leave within about 30 seconds of you hearing it. Next track, Can I Get A, is the perfect summery pop song: sweetly sugared, aspirational, bright and beautiful. It sounds a little bit like Feeder, and is the kind of song that Skindred probably couldn’t have nailed in their early days, but here they knock it out of the park.
Also, for a band that have been wearing the ragga-metal tag their entire career, there’s a little section where the metal takes a back seat; Broke is as two-tone ska as they have ever sounded. Although there is a seriously crunching guitar and some drum-pounding in Glass, the majority of the song has a smoky, blissed-out, dub vibe, and Big Em Up is an electro reggaeton banger.
Cannibal Corpse fans might turn their nose up at all of that, but for those folks who appreciate a somewhat wider musical palette, this genre-hopping, musical magpieing is very much part of Skindred’s appeal. But this is a band still happy to chuck out the type of song they’ve made their name with, too. There’s no doubt that Born Fe Dis and Do It Like This are both going to absolutely slay live.
With longtime bassist and songwriter Dan Pugsley leaving last year, causing change in a line-up that had been stable for decades, some may have wondered what Skindred would look like going forward. No need to worry; as Benji often says, with Skindred, you’ll never be surprised, and you’ll never be disappointed. It’s business as usual.
Can I Get A is out now via Earache.
