Skindred
Kill The Power
****
KILL the Power is Skindred’s fifth album. If it were cuisine, it would be a sumptuous 12-course meal. Exotically tasty and utterly satisfying.
This ska-reggae-metal-dubstep-dancehall-rock-and-everything-in-between Welsh band pulls no punches and is musically multi-layered and ridiculously tight.
It’s hard to pick a favourite – each track is put together with such precision that whether it’s mainly hardcore, or mainly ska, or mainly reggae, or mainly metal, jungle, or dancehall, it’s a treat.
Kill the Power starts the album with a bang, and keeps the pace right up to the fifth and hugely energetic Ninja. Then it’s time for Benji Webbe to truly shine as a vocalist – his voice on We Live is like molasses. I put it on repeat just for the vocals.
World’s on Fire truly is ablaze and the guitar work is masterful. Each phrase musically is precise, composed, deliberate.
One of my favourites is The Kids Are Right Now – about music being a saviour, a salvation.
The band’s hop from style to style is so effortless and really shows their enormous talent.
Perhaps an album like this – which one could spend days taking apart and admiring piece for piece, bar for bar, phrase for phrase, note for note, style for style, lyric for lyric – you should not over-analyse. Perhaps one should just enjoy it for what it is – a magnificent mash-up of sound, just delicious, an absolute feast that reaches deep beyond the ears.
If you like interesting, and you like heavy, and you like skilful, buy it. – Andrea Bryce