Album review: Skindred – You Got This

Later this year, Skindred will tour the UK with support from Alien Ant Farm, Spineshank and Orgy. Spineshark and Orgy have both disbanded during the course of their careers – three times and twice, respectively – and while AAF have kept at it since forming in 1999, they’ve released three albums since 2006. Skindred, meanwhile, have managed eight if you include this one. In short: they’ve never stopped and remain prolific, but nothing makes people take you for granted like permanence.

The Newport favourites have long had another impediment, of course. For much of their career, their reputation as one of the UK’s most formidable live bands has often unfairly overshadowed their records, reducing them to vehicles with a handful of killer songs to justify those headline-grabbing tours. Perhaps chafing at this, sometime around 2018’s Big Tings, the ’Dred decided to shake things up. They stopped second-guessing themselves or their audience, or prescriptively trying to satisfy quotas on each album of ragga-metal tracks, straight-shooting rock anthems and the slower, more earnest efforts the band have started to introduce in recent years.

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Lo and behold, once they reminded themselves that the only true essentials are Benji Webbe on vocals, Mikey Demus on guitar and Arya Goggin on drums, tings got bigger and bolder. The Number Two album chart placement for 2023’s Smile, meanwhile, confirmed they were on to a very good thing – and that a band 25 years into their career could still break new ground.

You Got This builds on this further still, with the most successful encapsulation of what continues to make Skindred so popular. Full of energy, attitude and a relentless, celebratory sense of fun, it’s the first time you feel they’ve let those hallmarks from their shows permeate one of their records, rather than aiming to write one that’s simply going to sound great live. It’s also chock-a-block with absolutely stonking tunes, which certainly doesn’t hurt.

You don’t sequence an album with four bangers in a row – the title-track, Can I Get A, Born Fe Dis and This Is The Sound – unless you’re making a declaration of intent. This is an all-killer, no-filler affair. Born Fe Dis is the only of those four songs that fans won’t have heard yet, a moodier but no less catchy cut that’s the equal of the tunes you’ve already spun.

Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that This Is The Sound harks back to nu-metal’s early 2000s golden age, courtesy of a band that were sharing stages with its titans back in the day, adding the braggadociousness of soundsystem culture into the mix.

And even when the slower moments arrive, spirits don’t dip a jot. Dripping in the same dubby, sun-kissed atmosphere that made L.O.V.E. (Smile Please) from Smile so popular, Broke is sure to soundtrack the more sedate moments of celebration this summer.

Benji is in a different kind of celebratory mood on Glass, acknowledging the lives and encouragement of the people that gave the singer the confidence to rise from crooning outside Newport chip shops for change to rocking the world’s biggest venues. It deals with loss but isn’t morbid, raising a glass and a soaring chorus to those much-missed figures. It’s his best vocal performance on a record that’s replete with excellent examples of his writing too, revealing more of the man behind the studded sunglasses.

Oh, and it’ll be interesting to see if Big Em Up inspires any TikTok dances, as their 2002 hit Nobody did, given that its latter minute descends into a manic maelstrom that may cause palpitations for even the most energetic mover.

Whatever you’ve loved and are looking for from Skindred, it’s present and correct on You Got This, and then some. But it’s all mixed up a little differently – hardness and heart aren’t mutually exclusive concerns, but entwined here like a black Union Flag around a mic stand. Get on this!

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Enter Shikari, Limp Bizkit, Bloodywood

You Got This is released on April 17 via Earache.