Album: Matisyahu, Light (100%)

The Hasidic Jewish musician's follow-up to 2006's Youth was originally scheduled for release over two years ago, before finally securing an American release last August, followed the best part of a further year later by this UK issue.

Usually, this portends some catastrophic decline in quality, but Light is actually a commendable effort, Matisyahu's raps swathed in the kind of images of struggle and duty one finds on a Sizzla album, set to arrangements that ally rolling rock-reggae grooves with jam-band guitar histrionics. To be honest, the latter all but ruins an otherwise decent piece like "Motivate", but there's plenty to compensate elsewhere in tracks such as the clarion call "Smash Lies", "I Will Be Light" and "Struggla", with its contention that "there's something wrong with a system that leaves its children as victims".

DOWNLOAD THIS Smash Lies; I Will Be Light; Motivate; Struggla