Shatter the Hotel: A Dub Inspired Tribute to Joe Strummer - Urgh, the tribute album what a minefield! I've bought a few in my time and most have turned out to be more of an insult than a tribute. Obviously I'm too polite to mention the worst offenders but........"Fire & Skill Songs of The Jam" (Gallagher's excepted) is an ideal example of where I'm coming from.
Thankfully this is definitely not the case here; by harnessing the infinite all encompassing power of DUB "Shatter the Hotel" is a majestic tribute to Joe Strummer and also (and more importantly) a tribute to the music of The Clash.
On "Shatter the Hotel" (the title comes from "Spanish Bombs") a Strummerville assembled gaggle of global Dub protagonists work through the 13 Clash tracks in a similar vein to the Easy Star - All Stars work on the "Radiodread" and "Dub Side of the Moon" albums. The style mix is well balanced ranging from the slightly Dub tinged cover version to the out & out dubbed up dislocated (which Clash track is this then?) transformation. Even though there's multifarious dub massive at work here the whole piece comes over like a coherent album held tightly together between the opening and closing bookends of "London Calling" featuring Don Letts.
Being pretty strong throughout it would be pretty sad of me to single out a particular track, so I will - Creation Rockers version of "Complete Control" is a sublime bit of work transmodulating the 3 minutes of one of the greatest vitriolic punk anthems of all time into almost 6 minutes of easy melodica bathed skank - it could be Mikey Dread singing, it could have come straight off Sandanista - joyous!
With STRUMMERVILLE, love, RESPECT & unity - DUB can't fail!