Soul Track Mind
Heaping helping of high-profile local LPs
Reviewed by Raoul Hernandez, Fri., Oct. 31, 2014
Sharon Jones' new millennial emergence put sweet soul music back into the mainstream. Not only did the Brooklyn dynamo's indie rock favor throw the spotlight back on forgotten elders Bettye LaVette, Charles Bradley, and Lee Fields, it sparked seminal new acts including Jones' Dap-Kings and Mayer Hawthorne. Welcome Soul Track Mind to the latter stable. Like fellow locals Hard Proof and Latasha Lee & the Blackties, STM works its homegrown circuit like James Brown – tirelessly. Its third LP dishes a hot, horn-fed, electric guitar-etched platter of hard modern R&B. Unbreakable continually urges groovers to "Turn It Up," and you will – repeatedly. From the explosive garage soul of opener "Ode to Youth," which makes the Black Keys sound white, to the acoustic thump of the closing title cut, the album's propulsive 31 minutes arrive without an audible seam or crack in the sonic veneer. Its musical arc folds in 2010 debut Ghost of Soul and last April's self-titled sophomore disc, and here nets fireworks only. Strutting "Fight for Love," loping "Silhouette," and piano skitter "Remember Me" sound the arrival of Soul Track Mind not only locally, but with any luck and lots of hard touring, on a national scale.
Portions of this review originally ran online in Earache! at austinchronicle.com/music.
