CMJ (p.6) - "Steel Pulse sound very much at home with a soulful yet not overly slick crossover sound that carries a bold message."
Steel Pulse: David Hinds (vocals, guitar, congas, cowbells, djembe); Clifford Pusey (guitar); Sidney Mills (organ, programming); Selwyn Brown (keyboards, background vocals); Alvin Ewen (bass instrument); Conrad Kelly (drums, percussion); Sylvia Tella, Donna Sterling (background vocals).
Additional personnel include: Damian "Junior Gong" Marley, Capleton.
From its formation in the mid-1970s in Birmingham, England, Steel Pulse built its international reputation by fusing socially conscious themes with compulsively danceable reggae. The band stood out by being virtually the sole black act (not to mention by donning pointed hoods and capes during its churning anti-racist anthem, "Ku Klux Klan") in the UK's '70s Rock Against Racism movement that also included the Specials and the Clash.
Steel Pulse's 2004 Grammy-nominated AFRICAN HOLOCAUST demonstrates that, after nearly 30 years, the group's opposition to racism, oppression, and tyranny in all its forms remains as fierce as its devotion to the power of the one-drop rhythm and the irresistibly sinuous bass line. Encapsulating its musical and political outlook in the "Down-trodden masses, get up off your asses" couplet of "Tyrant," the group slips and slides through a set noticeably light on sunny optimism and heavy on fiery Bob Marley-style Rasta socio-political commentary. Throughout, tracks like the stirring cover of Bob Dylan's "George Jackson" and the incendiary "Born Fe Rebel," with its litany of black and Third World political heroes, cement Steel Pulse's reputation for melding rootsy Anglo-Caribbean rhythms with an irrepressible urge for radical social change.