Dubblestandart, Lee Scratch Perry & Ari Up

It's official: Lee Scratch Perry no longer has anything to offer the world in a recorded medium. His once unpredictable and mischievous imagination made for fine absurdist poetry but this decade has seen him steadily slide from coherence into the basest scatology. Not that contemporary reggae and dancehall lack descriptions of bodily functions but Scratch takes it all the way back to the schoolyard playground. His unique delivery once made even the most inane or disconnected ideas seem interesting but here he just drags the otherwise very capable Dubblestandart into a warmed over Dub Syndicate '80s dub workout. This disc is just fine any time Scratch is away from the mic and Ari Up steps forth, though Dubblestandart's last disc was far stronger in its songwriting. Over the course of two discs there are enough pee and poo references (sometimes dubbed out in hilarious/atrocious fashion) to overload a small city's waste management system. Perry should stick to concert stages where his presence is at least enough to get over for about an hour, until the audience twigs onto his vapidity.