Sweet & Irie - Localize It

Rating

: * * *

Verdict

:

Local reggae debut more heavy on the sweet than the irie.

As South Auckland reggae band Sweet & Irie declare in the opening lines of first track

Jah Love

, debut album

Localize It

is unashamedly positive and uplifting reggae.

Led by singer Ed Ru, who has a friendly huskiness to his voice - but with a believable and noble quality - the nine-piece band formed back in 2005 with the intention to create a new wave of reggae music from the South Pacific. And if the contagious

Jenny

(think Katchafire's

Hey Gir

l only much much sweeter), with its cute picking, chinking and plinking, is anything to go by then it's all about chart-topping reggae tunes too.

Elsewhere the song

Sweet & Irie

borrows the "doot, doot, doots" from Lou Reed's

Walk on the Wildside

to great effect as it breezes its way along; the bright and sunny sound of

Beautiful Day

, while cheesy, has a magical three-way keyboard part that would make even the most hardened reggae purist melt; and

Uncle Bob

is a rousing tribute to the Rastaman himself.

However, there is an abundance of simplistic and ineffectual lines like, "I love the feel of reggae music, it's so soothing, it's so healing ... " from

Reggae Music

, meaning the songs are sometimes devoid of potency.That song makes Jimmy Cliff's

Reggae Night

sound like a ghetto tune. But then that's not what Sweet & Irie are about.

Scott Kara