Religious overtones make me nervous. I guess I'm just used to the things that turn me on being condemned in one way or another. Even gospel -- a major component in a lot of what I dig -- sometimes flies a little to close to the "lordy, lordy" for me.

Matisyahu is a full-on Hasidic Jew, a religious calling you don't often equate with pop music, or in this case dub reggae. Tuesday night he got up on the Main Street Armory stage with Brooklyn's Dub Trio providing an extremely deep, laid-back groove. The eager crowd piled up to the stage for the singer's incantations and freestyle.

The only solid thing about this music seemed to be the bass and drums as they united with the 1700 spines in the joint. Floating above it all was Matisyahu's slap-back soliloquy and diatribes. But the real freedom and unpredictability came from guitarist DP Holmes as he essentially redefined syncopation with notes and riffs that frequently threatened to become literal sounds. A soft-focus scan of the heads from the rear of the room proved that dub reggae is a music with choices: you can bob to the up beat or the down beat.