How many times have you happened to hear a debut album and it blew the shit out of you and made you say, “This is it, motherfucker!”, convinced that from now on you will receive only good stuff from that band? And how many times then a second album never comes up? Again not few. Well, at least we lived to hear such from Skindred. “Babylon” exploded unexpectedly and exotically in its combination of raga, dub and metal. And it exploded so that it shook the underground of the modern rasta-metal. But this happened five years ago. Then the four Welsh seemed to disappear and until the end of 2006 almost nothing was heard of them except the re-release of the debut. While the curtain of uncertainty was pierced in the beginning of 2007 when it became clear that the Benji Webbe and the other guys (in a slightly changed line-up) are in the studio at last to cook the second portion of their piquant dish. “Roots Rock Riot” continues in the same style as the first album of the quartet, but this time the stoned sunny trips are missing from the final picture, the clean rappings and tunes in acoustic background are lacking too, while the compositions are more straight and energetic. Riff-and-jump, scream-and-jump, riff-scream-jump. Plus the freaking jabbering of Benji. You know what I mean - low-tuned guitars, punky-fast rhythm, harsh metal shouts and hypnotic Jamaican singings and recitatives. And despite the lack of ease and calm motifs, there appear almost Soulfly-like punches (“Cause Ah Riot”, “Choices and Decisions”), and there are enough melodic and rhythmic tracks like the first single “Ratrace” on which you could disembowel with kicks the bed in the room. Yes, maybe the music of Skindred is not meant to be that technical, but the 45 minutes on “Roots Rock Riot” offer enough diversity and guarantee a mess at the parties.