Album: Mission In Progress

Genre: Reggae

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Morgan Heritage is back with their 10th album, Mission In Progress, and it's reggae music with an edge.

Achieving a unique vibe by adding a little rockers alternative vibe to their latest work, the group has added a little more funk to reggae music. While alternative/rock music has often been incorporated into the dancehall, reggae music has usually remained undiluted and with a pure old-fashioned vibe.

Morgan Heritage finds the right beats, the right instruments with some strong guitar chords to incorporate alternative music into their classic reggae. There is a heavy rock feel in songs such as 12 Shotz, feat Laza, which starts with a strong head-banging feel with a bit of rapping from Laza. Yet the group never loses their reggae heritage with reggae as the backbone of the album.

A fourteen-track album, Morgan Heritage focuses on a number of issues such as poverty among the young, in Yute Dem Share, to the ways of government officials in Politician. Raid Rootz Dance is the album's first single and is a re-imagined and renamed cover of Steel Pulse's song Blues Dance Raid. Morgan Heritage's take on the song is a good one and is receiving good airplay.

Other notable songs on the track are Brooklyn and Jamaica which has received airplay on radio and in the streets. The song highlights the difference between the two communities, yet there is similarity in the ghetto lifestyle as Morgan Heritage claims "this is real-life living and nuh poppyshow" and "is not a pretty life when yuh living dis ya ghetto life".

Yet while the lyrics are often hard hitting at the ills of Jamaica, Morgan Heritage still focuses on other issues such as love. In Love You Right the group serenades a lovely lady with "such beautiful eyes" and a "million-dollar smile".

Vocally, the group shows off their range and ability to be a cohesive unit. With a combination of older beats remixed and new beats created, strong lyrics and good vocal arrangements, Morgan Heritage comes back strong with their mission completed.