Sweetest Mantra
The Isley Brothers sing on this album the sweetest of sweet
soul music, Ronald Isley’s falsetto at the heart of all vocals, solo and in harmony.
The title song is as beautiful as any beautiful soul sound can be, here at the
smooth and soft prettiness point of that pretty spectrum – handclaps providing
what funk there is, especially as it rises within the closing chorus that
repeats the title. This of course has been set up by the gorgeous Prelude that begins the album, the melodrama
of piano strains and crashing symbols beneath the thumping drums with Ronald’s
plaintive plea for a harvest for the
world, a harvest for the people, gather all together, a harvest for the
children.
But if you want some funk, you’ve got it with third People of Today, oh yeah yeah. And then fourth Who
Loves You Better is psychedelicised into the mix with Ernie Isley’s
signature guitar sound, wah-wahing in that beautiful tone he makes his own. Suitably
funked we are returned to the loved-up caress of fifth At Your Best [You Are Love] where Ronald’s vocal and Ernie’s guitar
coalesce in the height of their honeyed sensuousness. This is as perfect as
such soulful sonorousness can be, before next Let Me Down Easy usurps with its deeper groove of soft resonance as
Ronald sings with a melancholy that soothes in its despair, but only in the
loving paradox and mantra of anticipation, if
ever you were to leave me.
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