BLOOD SWEAT & TEARS — Brand New Day (review)

BLOOD SWEAT & TEARS — Brand New Day album cover Album · 1977 · Pop/Art Song/Folk Buy this album from MMA partners
2.5/5 ·
seyo
While their connection with jazz-rock or classic fusion community will always be debatable, BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS were surely an interesting band. Even before the term "jazz-rock" was introduced, they played an interesting amalgam of rock, blues, jazz and soul, spiced with the late 1960s psychedelia. Due to a prominent role of the brass section in their sound, someone coined the name of the style - "brass-rock".

Alas, that was in the late 1960s, while in 1977 the band was far away from their inspiring roots. "Brand New Day" is actually a decent soul/funk effort that fans of Stevie Wonder or Joe Cocker would probably like a lot. Not everything functions here in the best possible way and songs like "Dreaming as One" (with Chaka Khan), "Blue Street" and "Rock'n'Roll Queen" are extremely corny pop/soul ballads that a convinced fusion fan usually skips without remorse.

On the other hand, there are several quite good moments, like two funkiest pieces "Somebody I Trusted" and "Gimme That Wine" that recall James Brown or Sly Stone. Clayton-Thomas' "black" vocal is brilliant in these moments as well as in "Don't Explain", although the latter suffers from unavoidable comparison with the angelic voice of Billie Holiday's original interpretation. J.J. Cale is famed for being credited for providing original songs only to see other people cashing in on his authorship. But, BS&T did not manage to follow suit although their rendition of "Same Old Blues" is fairly good interpretation of infectious Cale's laid-back, lazy country-blues groove.

In this phase the band was playing almost only the covers and lack of their original tracks just proves that they were long time now a past sensation. "Brand New Day" is not in the scope of even the average albums of the jazz rock era, but if you like brass instruments, soul and funk, occasional spin won't hurt.
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