I Can Hear the Children Singing 1975 - 1978

Blood & Fire, the label that simply cannot produce a weak reggae reissue, comes back again with what may be its strangest package yet. Instead of reissuing a classic out-of-print roots reggae LP with glorious new artwork and lots of extended tracks and dub versions as it usually does, the label has this time reissued two classic out-of-print roots reggae LPs with glorious new artwork and lots of extended tracks and dub versions, together in one package. And they aren't even by the same artist -- the first disc in this two-CD set is a reissue of Prince Alla's long-deleted Heaven Is My Roof (originally issued in 1977, when he was going by the name Ras Allah), while the second is an even more obscure classic by the all-but-forgotten Junior Ross & the Spear titled Babylon Fall and originally released around the same time. What binds these two albums together is the fact that they were both produced by Tapper Zukie when the latter was at the height of his powers, and thus the rhythms (provided by the Revolutionaries and Soul Syndicate bands) and the dark, dread production values that characterize the two albums are quite similar. Of the two, Prince Alla's gets the nod for his distinctive singing, which is not yet as skillful as it would be on later efforts (it is, in fact, rather out of tune on "Bosrah"), but which sets him apart from what was already a well-developed and stylistically defined pack at the time of this album's original release. Junior Ross is more derivative, but his songs of repatriation ("Send Me Over There," "African Border") and eschatology ("Judgement Time," "Rough Way Ahead") still hit all the standard notes just right. Highly recommended. ~ Rick Anderson, Rovi