REVIEW: The Brand New Heavies white vinyl reissue

Brand New Heavies are releasing their classic standout debut album simply titled The Brand New Heavies on Acid Jazz records on blue vinyl 26^th August. BNH are in the classic mould of those jazz funk heavyweights Donald Byrd, The Headhunters and Bobby Hutcherson.

Obviously having listened to these and other dynamite heroes the band members which included at the time of recording the album; Simon Bartholomew – guitar, vocals, N’Dea Davenport– vocals, Lascelles Gordon – percussion, guitar, Jan Kincaid – drums, keyboards, Jay Ella Ruth – vocals, Andrew Levy – bass, keyboards, writer & producer, Jim Wellman – tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, keyboards, sojourned to create a masterpiece of Acid Jazz.

Opening with the instrumental samba shuffle of BNH, the song soon breaks into a classic slice of bass and breakbeat heavy funk which extra dabs of rare groove, Gimme One Of Those dons its cap to James Brown, funk at its finest with a horn section deeply impacting the funk the ryhmn of the tune, Dream Come True, People Get Ready and Stat This Way were re-recorded in latter years of the band, but the versions found on this album exhibits an innocence and free flowing tight jive of the band.

Ride In The Sky sounds like a prime selections from KPM’s The Sound Of Soul, Jay Williamson has similar soul goddess tones to Madeleine Bell, Sphynx brings in some saxophone solo delights with another samba jaunt of highest appeal, the final dancefloor delight is Shakedown, sounding like a prime cut from a The Meters album, whistles, shakers, horns and the sensational backing band bring down the curtain in fine form on this standout release of the period.

A welcome reissue that delves back to a time when the world was awakened from the sometimes unimaginative indie guitars to a whole new exciting beat many had forgotten about, apart from those cats at Acid Jazz.

The Brand New Heavies can be pre-ordered via the following link