Nadia McAnuff & The Ligerians - Shelter From The Storm (SoulNurse Records)

Two tracks from the EP, ‘So Jah Seh’ and ‘Waiting Room’, form the foundation for the track list of this album.

If we’d describe tracks like the slow, Virgin Islands-roots flavoured ‘Holy’, opener ‘Love Divine’, ‘So Jah Seh’ (which could easily be a new Burning Spear track), and of course title track ‘Shelter’ (one of our personal favourites from the track list) as spiritual affirmations of faith, then in songs like ‘Know Who’ and ‘Waiting Room’, Nadia does not hold back her criticism of Rastafari getting stuck in their own dogmas.

In the first track, she sings: “Them say them love Rasta, but them no know Rasta. Them say them know Rasta, but a pretend them a pretend…”, and in the up-tempo stepper ‘Waiting Room’ she warns: “While them sitting and waiting for their saviour to come… Some sitting and waiting for repatriation, as the system is depleting our population. Brother please, the saviour you’ve been waiting on is hidden inside of thee; sister please, the saviour you’ve been waiting on is hidden inside of thee…”.

‘Fade Away’ is not a cover of the eponymous Junior Byles classic, but its message is similar: “Be careful of your intentions, what you reap is surely what you sow, fade away, fade away…”.

Nadia concludes with the more hip-hop-flavoured ‘Yes We’, a duet with her son YLSam, also known as Jah Samuel, who clearly takes inspiration from artists like Kabaka Pyramid and Protoje.

This time, instead of a portrait photo, the cover illustration is a design by an artist named Snooze. It depicts a young girl - an allegory for humanity - gazing towards a mountain range beneath a blood-red sky, a metaphor for an uncertain future that we must brace ourselves against.

The entire album was mastered by Laurent ‘Tippy I’ Alfred of I Grade Records.

Nadia McAnuff & The Ligerians will be presenting ‘Shelter From The Storm’ live on Thursday, August 1st, as part of Helden in het Park in Eeklo!