Richie Spice Gideon Boot doesn't fit! Kingston, Jamaica: May 2nd 2008 Source: jamaicanobserver.com Richie Spice's Gideon Boot is simply not as 'sturdy' as one would have hoped. In fact, the album is quite mediocre. Scheduled for a May 13 release, Spice's latest work is not exactly all-together horrible but fails to offer few stellar, if any, stand-out tracks like Earth A Run Red, Crying Out Love (Spice In Life, 2005) and Youth Dem Cold, Brown Skin or Groovin' My Girl on his 2007-release, In The Streets To Africa. The album, which credits the accomplished Bobby 'Digital' Dixon, Arif Cooper and Spice as writers/producers, opens with the easy-on-the-ears Babylon Falling, which falls flat and fails to impress. The follow-up and title track Gideon Boot offers a sweet-sounding yet militant Spice as he declares: "I need a Gideon boot and a khaki suit fe stand out inna Babylon and represent the truth/ I got a strong reggae beat with a mic in a mi han' fe lead out de youths dem outta destruction." The song is the album's most formidable, and it's easy to see why he's chosen this track to represent the overall concept, having sampled Johnny Too Bad rhythm from the 1970s Jamaican cult classic The Harder They Come. And it doesn't hurt either that Spice is the self-described "prince of fire". The militancy continues on the less-than-perfect-but-still-good Let's Go, featuring German reggae import Gentleman, who, along with Spice calls for repatriation (irony notwithstanding). Ska infusions form a bed of melody atop which Wrap Up A Draw lies, and like Marijuana of three years ago, urges listeners to "burn it from the root back to the stem." The familiar "Nana nana nana na, yeah-ah" are the introductory vocals that announce Getting Harder as Spice, on this track, bemoans rising prices and their correlation to crime and violence. And the talk of the 'One World Order' conspiracy is maintained on World Crisis. By this time the album becomes boring as metaphors of suffering and poverty drag on for far too long. The album, however, regains some ambition once it hits the familiar first single World Is A Cycle, produced by Cooper on his recent Guardian Angel riddim. The first single makes way for the present The Plane Land, with the rigors of dealing with immigration, racial profiling and the terrorism phenom' at its core. "The plane land 'saggle' myself fe tek interrogation," sings Spice. It's then on to the throwback rocksteady-esque Bad Lamp and the inspirational Rise. On the latter listeners get a chance to hear Richie Spice the Nyabinghi priest, who encourages youth to strive for balance and absolution: "Rise over never to go under/I been riding on the waves above the sharks and the whales. never to go under". Hang On, which serves as the album closer is another inspirational track that sits on the same riddim as Shine Head's yesteryear hit Strive. Gideon Boot, Spice's senior album, fails to convey depth or the sense that he has grown since his last release in 2007. It, however, may be the preferred listen for those who wish to separate themselves from the squalor or moral deficiencies present in much of contemporary reggae music. In terms of track selection, producers of Gideon Boot should have pulled up their socks and found a sleeker fit.

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