New from UK publisher Freestyle Records is Mighty Righteous by The Fantastics! If you’re having a backyard party this summer, this album should be the soundtrack. It’s hot and funky with cool in all the right places. Put it on a great sound system and you’ll think they’re live in concert.
Kick off the celebration with “Don’t Follow Leaders.” It’s upbeat, with big sound and big heart. This vibe carries through subsequent tracks–“Nine Lives,” “The Doctor Is In,” “Kinshasa Five,” and “Soul Sucka.” Track 6, “The White Out,” is ultra cool, like a Steven Soderberg film. It’ll make you want to rob a casino and then fly off somewhere fabulous.
Most of the album is strictly instrumental, but two tracks do feature the flamboyant vocals of Noel McKoy: “Soul Child” and “I Can’t Dance with You.” Of these two, TravelTracks prefers the latter.
“Blue Sunday” offers a mellow finish to the album and borrows from one of the empires of cool, snagging a little riff from the Mission Impossible theme song.
To hear samples of their music, check out The Fantastics! MySpace page. If you like what you hear, you can buy the whole album at Amazon.com.