Black Slate - World Citizen (Unit 8 Records)

London band Black Slate was founded in 1974 and first scored a big hit with 'Sticks Man', a song, which according to Wikipedia: "... hit the Dutch and Flemish charts as well, after being an underground hit in Antwerp discothèques." (it was even immortalized in juicy Antwerp dialect as 'Smoort Dan!' by Antwerp singer Stafke Fabri).
 
After Black Slate disbanded somewhere in the mid-nineteen-eighties, original band members Anthony Brightly (keyboards and vocals), Chris Hanson (guitar) and Desmond Mahoney (drums), in 2011 felt the desire to play together was once again there and after adding a few new members (Colin McNeish on bass, vocalists F Junior and Jesse Brade and Horace Burke on keyboards) to the line-up, this resulted in a first new album, 2013's 'Midnight' (TCD Records), now followed by the excellent 'World Citizen'.
 
The album opens with title track 'World Citizenship' for which Black Slate, like Bob Marley did at the time for 'War', recycled some lines from the famous speech Haile Selassie delivered in 1963 at the United Nations. The remainder of the album is a mix of roots tracks ('Roots Love', 'Zip Code Gangster' over the riddim of Gregory Isaacs' 'I Am Sorry', 'It's A Shame') and lovers rock tunes ('When I Think About It', 'Living In The Footsteps' and the beautiful 'Feel Like A Man') that seem to come straight from the glory days of UK roots, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and with 'Mozart In Trenchtown', a clear nod to Mozart's 'The Magic Flute', they prove that you even mix classical music with reggae. In addition to a series of very successful new songs the track list of 'World Citizen' also includes a few cover versions: 'Step Right Back' is Black Slate's version of The Gladiators' Studio One classic 'Tribulation' and 'Living In The Footsteps' is a salute to Delroy Wilson, an artist who they accompanied at the very beginning of their career as backing band (although the original version of the song was a soul classic by The Chi-Lites). 'World Citizen' is among the best reggae albums we've heard this year. Instant-classic!