✦✦✧✧ If you’ve never heard Skindred before, this is as good an example as any: Welsh nu metal with a decided Jamaican flair (thanks largely to vocalist and keyboardist Benjy Webbe).

✧✧✧✧ This makes nu metal sound like Deathspell Omega by comparison. It’s actually impressive just how densely packed this Skindred album is with all of the most hated elements of music from the last 10 years. Cowbell! Claps! Girl chants! Reggaeton! Even the rare moment when the band approaches actual decentness is inevitably marred by their insipid “ragga rock” proclivities.

★☆☆☆ The vast majority of what you’ll hear on this album sounds like Sevendust lost a bet, and made a covers album of the worst nu-metal B-sides they could find. More tragically, if you were to remove all that offal, you’d find a handful of genuinely interesting riffs and metal moments.

☆☆☆☆ This is an unholy amalgam of the worst parts of the worst things in music, equal parts David Draiman, Biohazard, dancehall, dubstep, and Kanye West at his laziest. Listening to this whole album was a true test of my fortitude, and I kinda hate you all a little more now for being even remotely complicit in my shame.