On The Rise

The fourth album from the SOS Band was a change of direction from the consummate soul/post-disco sound of their previous album S.O.S. III. Enlisting Jam and Lewis who had worked on one song on III, they removed the horns and jazzy chord progressions and added the distinctive futurist boom and bap of the Roland 808 drum machine. On The Rise is mostly drum machine sweet soul and yearning electro funk, full of dense layers of interlocking keys and synths and of course includes perennial dance floor anthem Just Be Good To Me, a song so big it’s visible from orbit. 

The last two tracks — an ill-advised cover of Johnny Taylor’s 1968 hit Who’s Making Love which isn’t so much bad as just entirely out of place, and Steppin’ The Stones, a song which suffers from an identity crisis — don’t measure up to the rest of the quality on show here, but neither ruin what is a very fine album indeed.