It’s safe to say Skindred are a unique beast. Find me another band that manages to mix such a diverse range of musical styles and deliver the goods in such a brutal, yet heart-warming way, and I’ll spend an evening eating my extensive hat collection. While ‘Shark Bites and Dog Fights’ may only be an eight track mini-album, what it lacks in minutes, it makes up for in furious diversity.
New single ‘Stand For Something’ is an anthemic opener that well and truly announces Skindred are back, and shows us that this Newport fivesome haven’t been whittling away time since 2007’s ‘Roots, Rock, Riot’. With a Queens Of The Stoneage-esque riff that breaks into a synth-laden electro-rock opening verse, it’s a pounding introduction to a record that leaves you very little room to draw breath over the course of its twenty-nine minutes.
Those who are familiar with the band will be no strangers to frontman Benji Webbe’s malleability, but here he has really pushed himself to the limit. At times he’s angelic, at others he sounds like the voice of the underworld commanding all ne’er-do-wells to rise up to the earth’s surface and dance their arses off. Just listen to ‘You Can’t Stop It’ – his ability to switch between the two is chilling.
Throughout this record, there’s a much more ‘electronic’ sound than in their previous efforts. At times, the excessive use of a vocoder can irritate, but mixed with the synth bass and the band’s underlying rock ethic, it all blends together to form an appealing little package. While the inclusion of the band’s ‘Electric Avenue’ cover may dissatisfy some people (I’m still not sure whether it’s something amazing or a musical crime), overall, this is an ambitious and coherent collection of four-minute wonders. Since their inception, Skindred have carved themselves a niche in the music industry that absolutely no-one else has managed to weasel in on, and with ‘Shark Bites and Dog Fights’, that ain’t gonna change.
Andy R