Born out of the fast driving rhythms that had heralded the ska craze, this more soulful and melodic style would lay the foundations for what we now recognise as Reggae.

At the start of 1966, Jamaica found itself basking in a record breaking heatwave. This certainly helped to build the desire to create a slower and more mellow style of music to dance to.

Vocal groups welcomed the change in direction with open arms. Whereas music before, performed by artists such as Lynn Tait, Prince Buster, and The Skatalites, had highlighted the playing of the instruments.

These new slower and more complex compositions highlighted the vocal talents of the new younger groups such as The Maytals, The Paragons, and The Gaylads.

One such group that had formed during this transisional period was The Melodians, formed whilst still at school by Tony Brevett(nephew to the legendary bass player Lloyd Brevett of The Skatalites fame).

The first track on the disc opens with some lovely bass work introducing the title track 'Sweet Sensation', which was their only UK hit (reached Number 41 in the second week of 1970 for one week only). That may not sound a great acheivment, but is still far better than many that we consider classics today (Desmond Dekkers 'Isralites' or The Maytals '54-46').

The second track is probably their finest and catchiest tune. The fantastic organ and 'choo choo' vocals that announce the arrival of 'Last Train To Expo 67'. You can easily imagine this being played at many a youthclub to a dancefloor full of young British skinheads.

After the first two tracks, you realise that the title to the CD is slightly misleading (Best Of). That's is because it features none of their UK releases other than the two tracks just mentioned, as well as 'Rivers Of Babylon' and a couple of their B-sides - 'No Nola' and '(Come) Rock With Me'.

The album is in fact a follow up to the 1997 Trojan compilation 'Rivers Of Babylon'. So people expecting to hear tracks such as 'Everybody Bawlin' or 'Swing And Dine' may be dissappointed.

Having said that, however, the album does contain many items previously unavailable on CD before. One of which is the truly brilliant 'In Our Time' - n outstanding tune, that I personally thought stole the show from the other lesser known material.

Others that come close are 'What More Can I Say', 'Hey Girl' and 'Love Is A (Doggone) Good Thing' - although I did think some of the other unreleased tracks came over slightly weak.

The album finishes with a rare cover version of The Drifters 'I'll Take You Where The Music's Playing' before the haunting 'gospel-like' intro to 'Many Rivers To Cross' (a song which featured in the now legendary Jimmy Cliff film 'The Harder They Come').

To summarise, I would say if you were out to purchase a best of The Melodians, you would probably be better off buying the sister album to this. But, saying that, I'm glad to have this if only for the beautiful 'In Our Time' ( unavailable on CD elsewhere).

I also think it's sadly ironic, that the manufactured pop group Boney M had an international hit with a glam disco version of 'Rivers Of Babylon' in 1978 - reaching number one and spending a massive 40 weeks in the UK charts (Britains 5th best selling single of all time!) They also later took The Creation's 'Painterman' to number 10 in the charts a year later!

All in all I hadn't realised just how vocally good (and sadly underrated) the Melodians were. A great album to chill out to.

Reviewed by Paul 'Smiler' Anderson (review posted on 18th October 2003)

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