Slave Call, Ethiopians

Limited edition of 750 individually numbered copies on orange coloured 180-gram audiophile vinyl. Deep Nyabinghi drumming and chanting on a version of the Ethiopian national anthem gets things underway on Slave Call, a majestic journey through the spiritual roots of reggae. Later songs add guitars, bass, keyboards, and horns to build a more standard reggae sound on that foundation, but there's always a dignified restraint and the profundity of the nyabinghi beat. The entire album revolves around Leonard Dillon's Rastafarian beliefs, with even the cover of the Beatles' "Let It Be" rewritten to a religious end.