Easy Star All-Stars, Easy Star’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band

It's official: the Easy Star All Stars have an ironclad formula. Every three years, the Brooklyn dub-reggae troupe gathers a giant list of guest vocalists and covers a classic-rock album beloved by teenage stoners. (We'll probably have to wait a while for them to get to any post-Kyuss "stoner rock," though I'd certainly like to hear what they'd do with Queens of the Stone Age's Rated R.) Following the surprising success of 2003's Dub Side of the Moon (rasta Floyd!) and 2006's Radiodread (OK Computer inna rub-a-dub style!), Easy Star's Lonely Hearts Dub Band arrives right on schedule.

Like the others, it's a mixed success. The vocalist roster is heavy on Jamaican legends like Frankie Paul ("Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" adapts very nicely to the All Stars 'pumping mid-tempo skank) and Sugar Minott, whose slight crags give "When I'm Sixty-Four" some depth, particularly during the bridge ("We could rent a cottage in the Isle of Wight, if it's not too dear/We shall scrimp and save"). (The track's continuing on into an extended dub is conceptually appropriate, too.) Then there's, um, Matisyahu, who is naturally assigned the dullest song on the original album. (You only thought "Within You, Without You" dragged on forever when George Harrison sang it.)

The real triumph here is, of all things, "She's Leaving Home." The Beatles 'original is pretty, and lyrically daring for the era, but it's one of the songs that really works best as part of the album. Here, the All Stars whip up a ghostly ska track with a peppery (and nicely undermixed) horn section; Kristy Rock's soft-focus vocal plays the words for their rhythm rather than their pathos, a good decision. Between this and the astonishing Toots & the Maytals version of "Let Down" on Radiodread, maybe the Easy Star All Stars should consider making their next one — Electric Doobieland? Dubless? Another Green World? — an all-ska affair.