Silk Sonic – An Evening With Silk Sonic
(Aftermath Entertainment)
Reviewed by Sam Smith.
One of the most hotly anticipated albums of 2021 has landed with a bang and delivered a high-octane infused offering of classic 70s soul. Silk Sonic is the artist and An Evening With Silk Sonic is the album, an album that will get you dancing in your bedroom or lounge from the first note.
A super duo of sorts, Silk Sonic is made up of Bruno Mars and Anderson. Paak, both soul and r&b masters in their own right, who themselves have had much success bringing a classic 70s soul sound to modern audiences over the last few years.
They team up here to continue on this trajectory of taking the best of the past and applying it to the now, although without altering any of the good things that make soul such a timeless genre of music.
When you listen to tracks like Leave The Door Open, the number one smash hit, you cannot help but hear Smokey Robinson, while Fly As Me and 777 are James Brown-esque in their uptempo nature with blistering rhythms and layers of screaming horns. This is as sweet as soul gets and is as close as one could get to the 70s in 2021.
This album does not miss across the nine tracks, but the high points are huge, with two tracks especially representing some of the best work these two artists have ever done.
Smoking Out The Window is a gorgeous soul ballad in the vein of the Isley Brothers and the O’Jays, while After Last Night might just be the smoothest song of 2021 thanks to some infectious bass work from Thundercat and vocal splatterings from former P-Funk master Bootsy Collins with his trademark adlibs.
Speaking of P-Funk, album closer Blast Off has that psych soul sound that has become very much in vogue again in recent times and includes a blistering guitar solo of which Eddie Hazel himself would have been proud of.
An Evening With Silk Sonic pays homage to the glory years of soul for sure, but this is by no means a second rate imitation album. The quality of the music here is so close in sound to what was happening in the 70s you could safely say this record would not have sounded out of place in 1975.
This should not be a surprise as both Mars and Paak have made entire careers out of borrowing off the greats of soul and r&b to great success and in the case of Mars, resulting in a Grammy for album of the year.
This album is not reinventing the wheel by any means, but that was never the intention with this collaboration. This is quite simply too talented guys having fun and making music based on the music they grew up on and by which they cut their teeth. This is music that still packs a punch today and that anyone can enjoy, and what is not to enjoy with songs as funky and as soulful as this.
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