With nearly 200,000 immigrants from Jamaica arriving during the mid-20th century, England has long been a hotbed of cultural imports from its one-time colony. (The island gained its independence in 1962.) Chief among those has been music: ska and its more widely known offshoot, reggae. First gaining popularity with the skinheads of the 1960s before influencing punk and post-punk bands and spawning the Two-Tone movement, ska and reggae have become intrinsic in English culture, with new forms sprouting up continually over the subsequent years.

As such, Jamaican music is deeply ingrained in England’s musical heritage, and the idea of a modern English reggae band isn’t some blasphemous equivalent of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones—far from it. Enter The Skints, a London four-piece who recently released their third full-length, FM (Easy Star Records). The band combines traditional influences with touches of R&B as well as ska and hip-hop’s modern offspring, grime. The sum of such parts varies between the soulful dub of “In the Night” to the frantic ska pop of “Friends & Business” to the grimey skank of “Eyes in the Back of My Head.” Purists may scoff, but these hybrids represent a purer take on ska and reggae than the modern strains coming out of Jamaica these days. Moreover, the band’s meshing of styles comes off as unforced, and as evidenced by their collaboration with UK dancehall legend Tippa Irie on their superb ode to London, “This Town,” The Skints are well-versed in their musical roots. With many having tried and failed, putting a modern face on a genre as deeply rooted in tradition as reggae is a tough task, but The Skints have succeeded and firmly established themselves in the process.