Reggae Album Review – another good one
- VARIOUS “THE BRISTOL REGGAE EXPLOSION 1978-1983″ (BRISTOL ARCHIVE RECORDS)
RELEASED? Preorder now
SOUNDS LIKE? Let’s be clear. I am a white male. Yes, I’m Irish, but being included in merry English signage like ‘no dogs, no blacks, no Irish” does not make me Bob Marley. Neither does appearing on this album. So, I can only hack this is as boring n bog standard white reggae lover, which means that anything outside the comfort n cool zone defined by love of Althea & Donna, Desmond Decker, Bob Marley, Dave & Ansell Collins and hatred for UB40 is going to be a white, white knuckle ride. Except that it isn’t. Now, this is probably a temporal rather than racial thing, but every single one of these tracks has been prepared with love, care, pride, sometimes expertise, but always with the right attitude. Let’s highlight a couple; Buggs Durrant isn’t a household name, but “Baby Come Back” chips with snare and brass breezes a soulful tale of love lost with soulful and blatantly poppy guile, it’s fucking brilliant, and so is “Africa”, a little something from Joshua Moses that sweetly torch and finger-pops a reggae shuffle ballad that soothes as it stirs, the cutey girl backing vox honey drip the “don’t let the wicked men fool you” chorus and melts you, just melts you.
IS IT ANY GOOD? Yes, yes, yes. This may well be real reggae from people you haven’t heard of, but it’s largely fantastic and reassuringly catchy n commercial.
WHERE IS IT? www.bristolarchiverecords.com
Taken from: http://www.unpeeled.net/albums.html
Tags: REGGAE
