The Inevitables is the new ska-punk supergroup and comic book series led by former/founding Less Than Jake drummer/lyricist Vinnie Fiorrello, Westbound Train's Obi Fernandez, and Big D and The Kids Table's Alex Stern, and it also features current and former members of Bomb the Music Industry!, The Interrupters, Reel Big Fish, and more. They released their self-titled debut album last year, along with the debut EP by their folk punk offshoot Who Will Meet Me At The Gates? (who exist inside The Inevitables' comic book universe), and now they've got a third project, The Inevitables versus Youth City Sound System, an album of dub versions of Inevitables songs created with Big D And The Kids Table's Jon Degen.

"Crafting the dub transitions for The Inevitables full length album was a super cool and unique challenge," Jon said. "Writing reggae riddims from the ground up to act as valleys in the mountains of a ska punk album just made so much sense. Getting to hear the interludes in real time on the album made me immediately hark back to skits on 90s hip hop records…De La Soul, Wu Tang…"

"Hearing each Dub for the first time was the most exciting part of my day," Alex Stern added. "Jon took every song for a wild left turn, and hearing songs that were often so aggressive transformed into tripped out art was the best kind of surprise. For the Inevitables’ LP, I had control over the entire band arrangement, but, on this EP I was mainly tasked with writing the vocal melodies and arrangement. It took a few attempts to adjust my approach, but, we came up with something sparse and soulful that works both for critical headphones listening AND for background at a party. I’m really proud of how we’re showing our affinity for different genres, while maintaining the undercurrent of darkness in all of our songs."

"Dub was always supposed to be a part of the The Inevitable's universe," Obi adds. "The Inevitables without dub is like New Jersey without pork roll."

The Inevitables versus Youth City Sound System also features some very cool guests, including The Specials' Lynval Golding, Catbite's Brittany Luna, Nightmares for a Week's Sean-Paul Pillsworth, and NYC ska veteran King Django. Lynval is on album opener "The American Me (In Me)," which premieres in this post. The original version on The Inevitables' LP ("American Me") is just a 33-second interlude, but here it's stretched out into a full three-minute song and it's a dose of dub reggae that's as hypnotic and groovy as it is political. The Inevitables do as much justice to this kind of music as they do to ska-punk, and having Lynval Golding on there is the icing on the cake of an already-great song. Check it out below.

Tracklist
⁃ The American Me (In Me)
⁃ Blessings
⁃ My Father vs. Youth City Soundsystem
⁃ The Age of Anxiety vs. Youth City Soundsystem
⁃ The American Me (In Me) vs. Youth City Soundsystem
⁃ Blessings vs. Youth City Soundsystem
⁃ Fort Lauderdale vs. Youth City Soundsystem
⁃ Float

—