The second
Soul Searchers LP expands the band's music into deep and dark new dimensions. While boasting an even funkier street-smart approach than the previous
We the People,
Salt of the Earth achieves new levels of jazz-inspired sophistication as well. The much-sampled "Ashley's Roachclip" and "I Rolled It, You Hold It" are brilliant evocations of mind-warping psychedelia, but the group also slows down and gets straight with a shimmering reading of the classic Bacharach/David love song "Close to You." Between those two extremes lurk angular yet soulful grooves with all the widescreen power of contemporaries like
Earth, Wind & Fire and
Kool & the Gang, but with a structural complexity all their own. ~ Jason Ankeny