Skinlab's latest offering is an album that comes with both high anticipation and great expectations. Having already established a loyal fan base with their two previous full-length releases the band are now looking to break out of the pack and achieve the commercial success that many of their peers from past tours have went on to reap. As such it would be hard to paint them with the Machine Head clones brush they were often slapped with before as the group have substantially re-tooled their sound this time around and though such influences are still prevalent, the music is overall a much looser, more bludgeoning modern metal assault than that of their past works.

With fearsome barks and haunting croons band frontman/bassist Steev Esquivel is intense as ever, yet perhaps more melodically oriented as he paints a grim aural picture through vocals that range from self exorcisms all the way to the role playing of a drug dealer. The guitar riffs are crunchy and detuned, carving out viciously snarling riffs that are often teamed up with thick, rumbling bass lines to create an auditory double punch. Extremely groove based, the band's somewhat sludgy brand of dropped down riffing causes the music to beat and pummel the listener into submission rather than violently stab and slice. This decidedly rhythmic direction plays well into the hands of band drummer Paul Hopkins who lays down a thunderous performance of dense rolls and thudding beats that usually body check the songs onward in a very primal demeanor, heightening the intensity levels with quaking double kick based outbursts.

Overall "reVoltingRoom" is an album that is sure to be controversial to many of the bands diehard fans as it finds them stepping away from the more traditional bay area metal based style which they embraced in the past and moving more towards the infamous new metal vein of things. With this being the case the bulk of songs included here often teeter between detached drawn out melodies and in your face growling sonic explosions, enlisting the services of a song dynamic that is ultimately well worn in this day and age. Sure there are some raw dirge like numbers that explore the darker psyche of the band and a few straight forward vicious attacks, but all in all the band have adapted themselves to the sing/scream stylings of many of today's bands, leaving them sounding similar a more melodic Soulfly without the tribal influences. Such a change in the direction has allowed them to write some soon to be mosh pit anthems like "Come Get It" and "Slave The Way", but has also left the material feeling a bit turgid and at times cliche. Fellow bay area crushers Machine Head faced a large backlash when they headed in a similar direction with "The Burning Red" and it looks like Skinlab may now also face such a situation, but perhaps that was intentional considering the name of the record is "reVoltingRoom".