Raw Spouge is one of those albums you won't forget after you hear it, either because you'll love it, or because the insistent spouge beat will drive you crazy, but there's no denying that this music hits hard and fast. Spouge is a hybrid musical form native to Barbados, equal parts calypso and reggae, but done at a speeded up ska clip with a soca dance mentality, and no group ever did it better than the
Draytons Two. Things get off to a manic start here with "Drink Milk," the opening track, and the energy never lets up, as the
Draytons plow through a cover of
the Untouchables' "Tighten Up" and a fevered take on
Toots & the Maytals' "6 and 7 Books of Moses" which rivals the original in energy, which is no small feat. Originally recorded in 1973, just as spouge began to sputter out as a musical form in the Caribbean,
Raw Spouge remains the music's high point, and although at times it sounds like Jamaican mento on steroids and speed, the driving rhythm with its incessant cowbell is impossibly infectious, a bit like hearing early
Bob Marley songs done at bluegrass velocity by a funky island jug band trying to sound like
the Ramones. Why spouge didn't escape the West Indies and take over the world is a mystery.