Professor ADD

Review

Album Review: Pablo Moses - The Itinuation

06/18/2017

by Larson Sutton

Just as quickly as the jangly, clean Memphis guitar and boiling organ open You An Me, does the groove settle into a one-drop bed, and Pablo Moses arrives. It’s a musical statement as bright and shiny as the lyrics are probing and thoughtful, asking questions of racial disharmony and borders between us. Then, Moses’ latest, The Intinuation, turns darker on the second cut, Attitude, that calls for love against a foreboding backdrop. This is a pattern that plays out over the course of the album, with the singer volleying between major and minor-key settings, touching down in familiar spiritual and social territory.

He looks to Jah to light the way on the title track featuring Harrison ‘Groundation’ Stafford, and hypnotically warns against Armagideon and the encroachments of Babylon’s spell with Living in Babylon. These archetypal reggae themes are in the hands of one who knows and cares, as Moses, having debuted over 40 years ago, continues to be a conscious caretaker of the classic approach.

His arrangements are crisp and polished, yet grounded in traditional instrumentation, accented by a terrific horn section.There are dips into soul, Latin, and even West African rhythms, but all circle back to reggae. He slyly incorporates rather than approximates, to great enjoyment. The word has likely never been sung so sweetly as by his female harmony singers during Murder.

There are warnings to Rastas, as well, to the world, but there is love here, too, as Moses recalls a hint of Sinatra as he “scooby-doos” in the early bars of the seducing I Love You. Still, he rails against hunger and poverty on In This Jungle, then with a symbolic return to Africa, closes with the percussive Open Your Minds that best represents the entirety of Moses’ message.

The Intinuation, as a follow-up to 2010’s The Rebirth, is a very successful one, showing Pablo Moses’ ongoing determination to an intinual movement forward as he is in guarding the rhythms and spirits of the past.

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