A belated American issue of
the Brand New Heavies' 2004 album,
All About the Funk was already fundamentally outdated by the time it hit U.S. shores. This is the sole
Brand New Heavies album to feature singer
Nicole Russo (the great
N'Dea Davenport came back to the fold for 2006's
Get Used to It), and likely due to
Russo's comparatively lightweight voice, this is easily the fluffiest and most pop-oriented album of the band's career.
Russo looks like Keira Knightley (a good thing) but sounds like
Fergie from
the Black Eyed Peas (a considerably less good thing), and as if to compensate for
Russo's vocal shortcomings, stalwart producers
Simon Bartholomew,
Andrew Love Levy, and
Jan Kincaid went equally flaccid on the beats and hooks. The results are limp lite-R&B singles like the vaguely Latin-sounding "Surrender" and '70s disco throwbacks like "Boogie," along with a distressing amount of sound-alike filler. Only glimmers of
the Brand New Heavies' trademark dancefloor suss peek through soulless, over-produced pop songs like "Need Some More," and the weak-tea ballad cover of
Jimmy Cliff's "Many Rivers to Cross" was simply a bad idea. American labels had the right idea in the first place. [
All About the Funk was re-released in 2014.] ~ Stewart Mason