It has been over ten years since the Menahan Street Band have released an album but The Exciting Sounds of Menahan Street Band is an aptly titled return for the group.
Consisting of members of The Roots, The Dap-Kings, Lee Fields and the Expressions, The Black Keys, and Budos Band, Menahan Street Band’s Thomas Brenneck (guitar/piano/synth) Nick Movshon (bass) Homer Steinweiss (drums) Dave Guy (trumpet) and Leon Michels (organ/saxophone) fuse together to craft glorious sounds in the vein of late seventies extravagant funk and soul.
The album kicks off with three strong offerings as the sweeping “Midnight Morning” breezes with bright brass while “Rainy Day Lady” plays out a smooth love story around the heavy bass thumping the way forward. “The Starchaser” is a tense, yet funky, undercover spy scene using snaking brass and a focus on the percussion (including additional congas from Elizabeth Pupo Walker) delivering an album highpoint.
That cinematic scope the band displays is clear on every tune (with a huge debt owed to Ennio Morricone) but the most over-the-top, made-for-the-big-screen offering would be “Rising Dawn” with its twinkling majesty and raindrop sound effects.
The group has been sampled numerous times by various hip hop artists and tracks like the grimy synth accented “Cabin Fever” and “Parlor Trick” with a distorted guitar ending, are primed for future collaborations. The band keeps these tracks short and it is to their benefit as when they extend things like on the slowed down “Silkworm” the results aren’t as memorable.
Having recently lost two friends/collaborators, the final songs on the record seem to be custom made for both Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley as the beats, piano, and over the top pomp of “Devils Respite” would be wonderful with Jones fronting while the smooth soul of closer “There Was A Man” is clearly a tribute to Bradley.
The sweet groove of “The Duke” and the crisp “Snow Day” displays the band’s sleek retro-soul strength with modern hip hop grooves in mind. The Exciting Sounds of Menahan Street Band is an example where the title tells the truth concerning the music inside.
Photo by Shervin Lainez