In all honesty we have to admit we had a hard time getting through I-Octane's album debut in one take; only with the greatest difficulty, a degree of tone deafness and a great fondness for the preconceived MTV r&b made popular by artists like Rihanna, could one classify 'Crying To The Nation' as being a reggae album. Unfortunately VP Records seems to be set on following the path of serving bite-sized instant music intended for the United States and yours truly can only hope this marketing ploy works out in their benefit because otherwise the future of the label looks by no means rosy. But back to I-Octane, who, once every so often, doesn't shoot far from the mark: 'Vanity Will Come', 'System A Beat Dem' and title track 'Crying To The Nation' are all reasonable roots tunes and 'All We Need Is Love' is a nice combination with Tarrus Riley, but the rest of the tracks on 'Crying To The Nation' aren't worth much of a mention!