Steel Pulse Ultimate Collection Music
by Steel Pulse

About this Music

16 TRACKS: 1) Handsworth Revolution 2) Ku Klux Klan 3) Prediction 4) Revolution Dub (Take 1) 5) Prodigal Son 6) Tribute To The Martyrs 7) Babylon Makes The Rules 8) Sound System 9) Uncle George 10) Burning Flame 11) Caught You Dancing 12) Not King James Version 13) No Justice No Peace 14) Settle The Score 15) Back To My Roots/Dub To My Roots 16) Evermore

During the mid-'70s, Steel Pulse were among the most important culture lions to emerge from England's highly politicized and supremely educated Caribbean community. Contemporaries of Aswad, Black Uhuru and dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, Steel Pulse produced a dub-heavy reggae that referenced African diaspora history and fed off of the burgeoning British punk rock movement. The resulting music was thematically dense yet readily accessible to a widening mainstream audience.

Unfortunately, the ambitiously titled Ultimate Collection doesn't quite live up to its name. The disc gathers 20 years' worth of Steel Pulse's vision, representing some of the group's biggest hits, but some of its best compositions (such as "Rally Round") are glaringly absent. No worries, though--the ability to hear "Handsworth Revolution," "Ku Klux Klan," "Babylon Makes the Rules," and "Uncle George" (Steel Pulse's tribute to Soledad Brother George Jackson) on a single CD compensates for the omissions. --Rebecca Levine