Visions of Love

Though the West Kingston neighborhood of Greenwich Farm had long been a hotbed of musical activity, in the mid-‘70s a group of talented young musicians began to coalesce around the tiny local studio and practice space run by Bertram Brown. His in-house session band, The Soul Syndicate, cut rugged, stripped-to-the-bone instrumental rhythms that would soon dominate Jamaican roots music in the late ‘70s. Of all the talented singers that Brown recorded during this period, few could muster the sheer devotional fervor of Earl Zero, who cut two full-length albums with Brown and The Soul Syndicate between 1976 and 1980. It was the second of these, 1979’s Visions of Love, that boasted what would become Zero’s most lasting and influential composition, “None Shall Escape the Judgment.” Driven by an insistent four-on-the-floor drumbeat, “None Shall Escape” charges forward with implacable momentum while Zero declaims on the theme of the last judgment. The remainder of Visions of Love is nearly as powerful, particularly the moving “Please Officer,” an indictment of police brutality later covered by Jimmy Cliff.