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Review

Album Review: Pressure - The Sound

04/15/2014

by Angus Taylor

Pressure has never made a bad album and this is among his best.

St Croix’ Midnite are US Virgin Islands reggae’s most widely listened success story. Yet St Thomas’ Pressure Buss Pipe will go down in history as the artist who blew up in Jamaica via 2007 Don Corleon hit Love and Affection - no mean feat for a “small island boy”.
 
Pressure represents a different side to VI reggae from the phlegmatic, anti-commercial deep roots template of Midnite. His two albums for producer Dean Pond and one with the Don served his cultural reality lyrics on a well-balanced pop roots platform.

What was originally slated to be a fourth release, African Redemption, produced by Baby G, with combinations from Damian Marley and Tarrus Riley has not seen the light of day. So Pressure has gone back to his heritage and old friend Laurent Tippy Alfred of St Croix’ I Grade Records, who once gave the young singer-deejay a feature on Midnite offshoot album Geoman.

The Sound is part of an I Grade trilogy that has so far yielded Midnite’s Beauty for Ashes and has yet to produce Lutan Fyah’s Music Never Dies. The rhythms are mainly played by Zion I Kings (Tippy, Jah D from Florida’s Zion High Productions and Andrew Moon Bain from Cali’s Lustre Kings). And where they showcased a lighter, less lyrically dense dimension to Midnite they have taken Pressure to deeper, more meditative places.

But let’s not imply that this is a slow and solemn affair – featuring only the heaviest, dubbiest backings you might hear when you watch a video of I Grade’s regular Dub In The Fish Market sessions. The initial songs suggest Tippy and Pressure were conscious of not alienating the pop-reggae fans of Love and Affection.

Gradually building acoustic guitar and percussion intro Rise Today’s anti-gang violence message clearly means a lot to Pressure (the victim of a St Thomas shooting in 2012). Show Love is a gushing exploration of human emotion with a power ballad chorus that’s saved from going over the top by Tippy’s haunting melodica. Single Virgin Islands Nice name-checks local heroes - including statesman Edward Blyden, hard-punching boxer Julian Jackson and musicians Midnite - to a gentle, catchy skank.

Next Pressure moves into new grooves with the funky reggae of Lutan Fyah combination Stop This Train. The fiery afro syncopation of Cry For Humanity, enlisting VI singer Ras Batch and deejay Niyorah, demonstrates that Zion I Kings can play the music of Soothsayers (both the Kings and the London collective collaborated on projects with Cornel Campbell last year).
 
Having eased us in with pop, and bridged the gap with funk, the beat finally does slow down into some of Pressure’s heftiest work to date. There’s bottomless preview single Run Away, the aggressively spiky guitar driven Herbsman Town featuring brimstone St Croix chanter Volcano and the rebellious, reflective Nothing No Wrong with Vaughn from Midnite.

Production-wise it’s a high point for Zion I Kings – their cool roots flavour getting a clarity from Tippy’s mix that recalls 70s Prince Jammy. I Grade guitarist Padraig Coursey continues to give proceedings a nicely integrated US alternative rock feel.
 
This isn't the total deep dub meditation you might expect from the words “I Grade”. But then the Midnite set was more up-tempo and melodic than most too. Though it would be nice to hear such a Pressure record next time - that should not distract from how good this one is. Pressure has never made a bad album and the Sound is among his best.

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