This Ghanaian/Scottish/Mancunian reggae lifer has such a juicy musical pedigree that one cannot help rattling off a mini press kit every time his name pops up. First and foremost, of course, is the fact that Tricky is his nephew (you thought that "Quaye" looked familiar, didn't you?), but those who go farther back might discover that his half-brother is Caleb Quaye, who played guitars on my favorite Elton John record, Rock of the Westies, and who is not to be confused with Quay Lude of the Tubes, but was known to the group as "Old Ultra Sheen" (does Finley reference that at the end of "The Way of the Explosive" when he says "This guy's ultra"?).

While this bio doesn't guarantee 100 percent that he will galumph all over reggae tradition, there's a good chance he'll see fit to fuck with it more often than not. That's good because it points toward a quirky, unorthodox disc that stands out in a genre that makes sonic uniformity a virtue. And whaddayaknow -- for about seven or so songs, Maverick A Strike is exactly that. Just listen to the way he honors the greats. "Sunday Shining," a recasting of Marley's "Sun Is Shining," sounds like an obscure Eddie Floyd song. But this Stax/Volt session has fuzztoney guitar and patois vocals. Like his nephew, Quaye's not opposed to sprinkling his dub with goofy sound effects ("Ultra Stimulation" and the cuckoo-clock rhythms of the title track) or moodifying with string-laden backdrops (the hymn-like "It's Great When We're Together"), although Tricky steals better ones, such as the heart-breaking loops of Isaac Hayes in "Hell Is Around The Corner."

Too bad the album devolves into traditional (give or take a filtered vocal or two) lovers' rock and a pointless instrumental toward the end, because Finley can better a comparatively weak track like "The Way of the Explosive" with a nutty sense of wordplay that suggests the dude's been listening to a lot of Scritti Politti or Elvis Costello: "Stepper. Pass the pepper. Hyper." In the absence of new Linton Kwesi Johnson product (hey - how cum music fans don't bitch as much about his tardiness as they do My Bloody Valentine's when he's taken off just as much time), we could use a new reggae poet- rebel to rally behind.