- The strength of funk and soul in Australia continues to amaze with a new record from a band that has already contributed craploads to it. Oh, by the way, how long does a thing have to go on for before we stop calling it a revival? Deep Street Soul's second full-length hits the street chock full of the stuff that they are famous for. That is, very funky soul, dosed up with hammond organ and strained through gritty, downright filthy production. There's something about the (enjoyably) pummeling quality of the funkiness, especially noticeable on the instrumentals that are intersperced between every vocal track. It's a machine-like quality that marks the best funk - there's no time to mess around with jazzy improvisation, it's just gotta be focused on that singular groove all the time. The Bamboo's Lance Ferguson once said: the most important skill a funk musician can have is the ability NOT to improvise. That kinda discipline is something Deep Street Soul have in spades. Despite their name, funk is probably the core commitment of Deep Street Soul. Perhaps the band were feeling guilty about that because on the new record soul gets more of the limelight, especially with the addition of their new diva May Johnston. The title track and first single off Look Out, Watch Out is a perfect introduction with it's meaty power, but there's a number of great tracks that May goes to work on, including the rather special slow groove of What She Said. There's also a couple of neat guest spots from Roxie Jay and Randa And The Soul Kingdom's Randa Khamis. The new focus on soulful songs with crowd-pleasing vocals is bound to make what was already a great band much more accessible to a wider audience. Honestly, they're signed to the UK's Freestyle label and they do fantastically in England and in Europe - it's a wonder they still live in Australia. I'd suggest that the album launch tour they're engaged in right now would be a fantastic time to catch them, just in case it's your last in a while.