Slavic Soul Party!

Slavic Soul Party's name makes a lot of sense: like soul and funk, Balkan folk music is bursting with heavy syncopation, impassioned vocals and, of course, brass, baby, brass. Perhaps the connection is so close that the differences are negligible, because with the exception of stripper-blues number "Never Gonna Let You Go," one would be hard-pressed to locate any explicit nods to the Godfather of Soul or his offspring on SSP's third album. But maybe that's the point: rather than saluting any American genre, SSP play pretty straight-up gypsy folk music, and dang if it isn't incredibly soulful.