Consumer Guide Album

Max Romeo: War ina Babylon [Island, 1976]
Romeo has long been a professional rude boy ina the Anglian outposts of Babylon, and this career training is reflected in the brightness of his reggae, refreshingly explicit and immediate (both musically and lyrically) in the wake of second-rate Toots and Marley. In fact, I find this album more attractive than all but two reggae LPs released stateside in 1976--the Mighty Diamonds and the first Burning Spear. But I won't argue with anyone who finds it tediously close in spirit to the foregone conclusions of Peter, Paul & Mary. B+