[RATING: 5] Spring must be on the way if a super sweet rocksteady drop like this is on the way. Caz Gardiner & The Badasonics finds DC-based vocalist Gardiner hooking up with musicians from Belgium that in an alarming oversight the PR forgot to mention were only funky reggae merchants The Caroloregians! The collaboration yields Never Gonna Let – a soulful number on which Gardiner is as insistent as a woman can be that she’s not leaving her man for some rich fool with gifts while the flip is the lilting Tic Tac Toe. This slower (or faster – depending on the speed of your skank) affair presents the other side of the coin in which Gardiner’s heart is won by a guy who looks at her in a certain way. Presumably not the bloke with the gifts though. Very much the ‘Supremes-fronted rocksteady’ vibe of recent Pama International release – which is to say, most welcome.
(Out March/ April on Badasonic Records)