`Catch a Fire' reforged reggae and more.(The Orange County Register)

It's only fitting that reggae's most crucial album would get a reissue treatment typically reserved for the greatest albums of all time _ though such a thorough overhauling has been overdue for at least a decade.

The genre's fans, of course, are well aware that the Wailers' statement of purpose, "Catch a Fire," is, to rely on an overused term, "seminal." By 1973, Jamaican music had made inroads toward international notice, whether authentic (Desmond Dekker's novelty hits) or borrowed (the Beatles' "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," Paul Simon's "Mother and Child Reunion"). Meanwhile, Jimmy Cliff's rebellious turn in Perry Henzell's gritty film "The Harder They Come" was, for American and British audiences, a gateway to an otherwise unknown world of deep soul grooves, fight-the- power sentiment and heavy-duty ganja.

But the Wailers' slow-burning debut was the true breakthrough _ a perfect collection of social unrest set against blissfully blunted tunes that spoke to the same crowd that at the time was steeped in Bowie, Clapton and the Stones. It wasn't just Bob Marley's emergence as a visionary songwriter that made it a landmark, though that certainly was one of its greatest accomplishments. More importantly, it was the first reggae album that anyone took seriously as art _ and with good reason.

For one, it's an album, not a pair of hits packaged with filler. It remains an experience that, as with Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" or Sly Stone's "There's a Riot Going On," rewards most when you sit and concentrate on its pacing, its structure _ and, in this case, its rock-steady riddim. The manner in which you hear the songs matters: It is the aural equivalent of pent-up ire becoming irie, each an important facet of rebel-rock.

The disc's first side, for instance, is the band's soon-to-be- patented pacifist aggression in its rawest form _ from "Concrete Jungle" and "Slave Driver," two of Marley's most potent universal anthems for the oppressed, to a pair of equally passionate protest songs from Peter Tosh, "400 Years" and "Stop That Train."

From there the album moves to love songs and late-night party calls _ "Baby We've Got a Date (Rock It Baby)," "Stir It Up," "Kinky Reggae" _ before finishing off with two inspirational calls for peace, "No More Troubles" and "Midnight Ravers." It all forms a soothingly detailed sketch of life and strife in Kingston that, not so surprisingly in retrospect, spoke to Americans who at the time were emerging from Vietnam and ...