Customer Reviews

Universal Message, Vol. 3 [Vinyl]

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Universal Message series by VP is a nice series which they only seem to touch on every 2-3 years or so, this latest edition follows #2 which was released in the fall of 2001, the first installment saw life in 1999, and needless to say, this is an underappreciated and underpromoted series over at VP.

Predictably it takes from many of VP's bigger artists, so of course you have material from Capleton, Sizzla, Luciano and Morgan Heritage, all pretty solid efforts, Junior Kelly as well. That's all good and tight.

Capleton and Sizzla have 2 of the best tunes here, no doubt, That Day Will Come is huge and Ain't Gonna See Us Fall might be Sizzla's best culture tune in a while, and Luciano's Give Praise is one of the best songs I've ever heard, but what really shines here are the younger and not-so established types. 5th Element is well represent as both Chuck Fender and Richie Spice offer big tunes from their new albums with I Swear and Blood Again, but you also have Turbulence's beautiful Hail to the King, great great opener to his last VP record. You also have a really nice song by someone called 2 Isis whom I've never heard of called Ghetto Pain, really cool song, deep song. And you have German import Gentleman on one of his bigger songs, Dem Gone.

All that being said, the best stuff here, I-Wayne's huge Living in Love, Morgan Heritage's vibrant Uncomfortable on a song that really needs to be heard and FANTON MOJA! on Hungry, huge huge record! Big future in store for Moja and I-Wayne. Through in some Junior Kelly, Tanya Stephens, Bushman unexpectedly Wayne Wonder and you have a pretty nice album.

Overall, this could very well be a 5star album for you if you're not too familiar with the music, having been listening to about 75% of these tunes for months now, it's not as hard hitting for me, but if you haven't been listening, it can certainly be better for you. Yes, it's that good, hopefully we wont have to wait until 2009 for #4.