Jimmy Cliff's initial impact last year, based upon his starring role in the film, The Harder They Come and his work on its soundtrack LP, made it seem that he might come to be considered the best, or at least the most accessible to Americans, of the reggae singers. But the enormous expectations created by the movie have made his subsequent work—last year's Unlimited and this album—seem worse than it really is. Because Cliff is such a fine vocalist, even his worst efforts are listenable, but his initial promise has been marred by the uneven quality of much of the material he sings.

It was easy to see why Unlimited failed. Recorded for Warner Bros., it became trapped in the pitfall of that company's production mill, which has a pronounced tendency to reduce everything to a variant of Southern California pop. But hidden beneath the slickness...