![]() It's easy to pick up on the '70s sensibility percolating beneath the lush groove of "Never Gonna Fall" or simmering below the slow and sultry ballad "I'm Leaving," but hard to find anything old-fashioned in the sound. That's part of the reason "Lisa Stansfield" seems such a breath of fresh air. She treats '70s soul as an attitude, something that can ground her music in the past without ever making her forget the present. Lisa Stansfield, though, has a better idea. Most singers treat '70s soul in one of two ways: Either they consider it their music, and try to reclaim it through samples and cover tunes, or they consider it their moment, and try to relive it through retro fashion and slavish imitation. Yet as much as the band plays off its stylistic range - mixing spaghetti Western guitar with classic reggae skank in "Light Years," or supporting "Inner Light Spectrum" with dub-style bass and echo effects - it still maintains its groove, ensuring that "Transistor" keeps its spark from start to finish. There are even a few songs that display both sides of the band all by themselves, like "Use of Time," which goes from soft-edged acoustic balladry to a sort of semimetallic psychedelic dub, and back again. ![]() So for every track like the title tune, which stacks meaty, distorted guitar tracks over a giddily kinetic pulse (complete with a mini dub break), there's something like "Running," which artfully intertwines a loping, 5/4 rhythm vamp with a driving rock riff. But even though much of the music on 311's fourth album, "Transistor," is in-your-face aggressive, what makes the album worth hearing is the way the band balances its bluster with soulful interludes and moments of jazzy lyricism. ![]() Subtlety is not something you expect from a band whose sound is built around guitar crunch and pumped-up dancehall riddim. ![]()
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