Earth, Wind & Fire

The group's first collaboration with producer Charles Stepney isn't so much a departure for the Oakland, Calif., band as it is a tightening of their tangential brand of kitchen-sink funk. But that's not to say it's dull; the sunny jazz of "Feelin' Blue" bumps against the bluesy "Fair but so Uncool" before bowing down to the spiritual title track.

On side one the vocal systole-diastole finally comes together, with Philip Bailey definitive, as he deserves to be; Maurice White, meanwhile, provides tuneful, relatively unselfconscious songs over a light Latin-funk beat jarred by grunts, horn riffs, and keyboard squiggles. A very pleasant surprise. Side two, where they always stretch out and often make fools of themselves, is a survey of EW&F's roots, from the kalimba-hooked "Drum Song" through street rap through 1:41 of expert cocktail bebop (didn't know Maurice had that rim shot in him) through schlock scat to the devotional theme song, written in 1958 by one Leon Lumkins. A f*cking tour de force. (Grade - A-)