UK singer-songwriter Liam Bailey is a sly genre blender. Nowhere is this more apparent than on his latest album Zero Grace, which is out February 23 on vinyl (bloodshot colored or standard black), compact disc, and digital through Big Crown Records. Reteaming Bailey with ace producer and Big Crown co-founder Leon Michels, the resulting 12-song set delivers a vigorous infusion of reggae and what Bailey has described as lo-fi soul. Hints of rock, elements of psychedelia, and even a little acoustic strum widen the album’s sonic landscape.
Zero Grace’s opener “Holding On” presents Liam Bailey’s sound as tough, edgy, and soul deep. It’s really no surprise his initial dalliance with a major label didn’t work out, Bailey pulling his first album Out of the Shadows prior to release in 2011; he debuted with a pair of EPs on Amy Winehouse’s label the prior year. His first proper album, Definitely Now came out in 2014. But things started getting really interesting with Ekundayo, released by Big Crown and produced Michels in 2020.
The drumming at the start of “Holding On” solidifies a ’60s soul foundation while the singing accentuates the Jamaican roots. But in a striking style switch, the guitar eschews the slinky clean crispness of reggae for a decidedly rockish rhythmic string attack that goes so far as to insinuate early ’70s hard rock by the track’s back end.
The following cut “Dumb” effectively illuminates Zero Grace’s textural unusualness: muffled drums, a keyboard set to “croak,” unperturbed horns lines gliding in, and vocals alternating between soulful finesse and desperation. “Sekkle Down” places the focus directly on reggae but with keyboard tones alternating between vintage arcade games and wind instrument settings. But the singing in “Sekkle Down” extends the rich tradition of R&B vocal groups (including some sweet bass voice accents that are recurrent but not overdone across the LP).
With its pointed words focused on disrespect stemming from prejudice, “Boy” harkens back to the classic era of ska and soul social commentary. It’s a cinch fans of Syl Johnson, Dandy Livingstone, and The Equals will dig it. The serious lyrical stances continue in the stripped down R&B-tinged “Disorder Starts at Home” and most powerfully in “Mercy Tree,” where the railing against racism gets boosted by the music’s intensity and uniqueness of conception.
But “Dance With Me” is just a potent slow groover poised to get bodies closer together on the dancefloor. “Sour Wine,” with its atmospheric stretches, magnifies Zero Grace as something distinctly other than a standard throwback. Due credit to producer Michels, who displays his typical inventiveness, but there are connections to precedent, such as dub in “Canary in the Coal Mine.”
The rock sensibility returns, this time fuzzed-up and ’60s psych-infused, in the otherwise soul achy “Winter is Within Thee,” and it’s a treat just how non-trite it all unwinds. Some of the psych aura carries over into the terrific “I Got No Answers,” which legitimately connects like it could’ve been a left field late ’60s psych-rock single that never was.
For closer “Light Up the Darkness,” the acoustic gets pulled out, with the campfire ambiance boosted by accompanying bass and bursts of backing harmony. It’s a satisfying finale that showcases Bailey’s range and the core strength of his songwriting. Zero Grace is the byproduct of deft collaboration, but there is cohesiveness pulling together the stylistic diversity, the distinctive production and the inspired playing. The sense of purpose and discipline belong to Bailey.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
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