Skindred - Babylon (Review: Alex)

I'm stuck with this one. I've listened to the album a few times and I'm still not sure if I like it. Initially I thought it was quite clever. I read Roshan's review before listening to the album, and couldn't see how anyone could ever mix reggae with metal. But on listening to the album, I could hear the two genres suprisingliy clearly. On tracks such as 'Selector' I could hear distinct aspects of post-Bob Marley reggae. It was odd, to say the least, and I actually quite liked it.

There were a couple of tracks that I especially liked. 'Pressure' is a good song, and certainly the most catchy on the album. However, it is the song with the least amount of fusion between genres. This led me to think that the times when I liked the album were the times when the band wasn't trying to mess around with genres. Indeed, 'The Fear' is the least metal song on the album, and again, one of my favourites (it also sounds ridiculously like 'London Calling' by The Clash ('the rude boys are coming' onwards by comparison to 'The ice age is coming' onwards.), I'm not sure if they knew this...).

After a while, I began to find the vocals slightly annoying. The album began to sound like a collection of incoherent drivvle. A lot of the time it just sounded like a fight between metal and reggae, and I wanted it to decide what it wanted to be.

Like I said, I'm confused by this abum. I think I like it, but at the same time it annoyed me. I will therefore have to strike a happy medium at 2.5/5 (don't judge the 2 sig figs)