Junior Reid’s Dramatic Return Is Good News for Reggae Fans

Reggae fans’ long wait for a young new artist to champion looks as if it’s over, if Junior Reid’s triumphant set at the House of Blues on Sunday is any indication. The 30-year-old Jamaican singer’s career, which included a stint as lead singer for Black Uhuru, was disrupted for eight years here by visa problems, but his powerful performance adroitly combined socially conscious messages with a contemporary dancehall sound and stance.

Although never cold toward the audience, Reid had an intense glare while stalking the stage, reflecting his focus on the work at hand. The music was a superb blend of hard roots reggae frequently punctuated with punchy, stop-time breaks and lyrics that melded insightful social commentary with catchy pop choruses.

Reid showed his versatility when he broke from the usual reggae mold for a strong version of the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” and the gospel-tinged ballad “Listen to the Voices” about the elderly in urban areas. The hard-rocking, Black Uhuru-era “Great Train Robbery” then led into a potent return to straight-up reggae, culminating in a lengthy encore capped by his late-’80s club anthem “One Blood.”

Second-billed Big Youth’s engaging stage presence evoked the days when reggae deejays were raffish characters more than speed-rapping studs, but his set did lag noticeably toward the end.