Unlock Your Mind

構成数 : 1枚
合計収録時間 : 00:00:00
"Everybody get up on the floor, enjoy yourself" orders guest vocalist Sean C, accompanied by members of the Soul Rebels on "504," the opening song of Unlock Your Mind, the New Orleans horn octet's first nationally distributed album after local releases such as 2009's No Place Like Home: Live in New Orleans. 504" refers to the New Orleans telephone area code, establishing the band's geographic focus, but the name "the Soul Rebels" is justified both by the soulful R&B vocals and funky rhythms and the irreverent, eclectic musical style. That comes across on the second track, a cover of the Eurythmics hit "Sweet Dreams Are Made of This," which begins with a mournful dirge sound, but quickly turns to the song's familiar synth pop riff, albeit handled by the six horns (the trumpets of Julian Gosin and Marcus Hubbard, the trombones of Corey Peyton and Paul Robertson, the tenor saxophone of Erion Williams, and the sousaphone of Edward Lee, Jr.). The result is a sound that could easily be adopted by high school and college marching bands for an unlikely football field anthem. The selection serves notice that the Soul Rebels are not just any New Orleans brass band, and thereafter they introduce raps and reggae beats, and an accomplished jazz-funk instrumental in "I'm So Confused." But they remain faithful to the New Orleans musical ideal in the sense that they turn everything they play into celebratory party music, even a version of Stevie Wonder's "Living for the City." ~ William Ruhlmann