Lubriphonic Entertainment Art "Soul Solution" (reapandsow, Inc.) Released January 1, 2009

Chicago-based Lubriphonic, with their third studio release, 2008’s Soul Solution, laughs in the face of traditional music ideals and deliver a funky album that glistens with musical innovation. Horns, guitar and ear splitting drum fills leave listener’s head somewhere in between sheer ecstasy and exhilarating exhaustion.

Crisp vocals from lead singer and guitarist Giles Corey drip with the bluesy twang of Ben Harper and John Popper and perhaps ease mainstream listeners into the musical orgy of sound that awaits.

“Mixin’ in the Kitchen,” also featured in its live format on Soul Solution, kicks off the album with a hyper-paced rhythmic nature. Drummer Richard King and guitar hero Corey share the spotlight throughout the jam feeding off each other’s musical grandeur.

Lubriphonic, which by name alone, sounds like a collection of greased aural pleasures perhaps only found at a Jiffy Lube, know they are far from cliché. With a 1920’s era bootleggers’ eargasm of a trumpet solo courtesy of Ron Haynes in the albums title track, Lubriphonic brings a sadly lost funk vibe that could make George Clinton raise a spliff in approving fashion.

The Windy City band’s blues influence (Corey and King played backup for blues legends B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Bo Diddley among others) leaves a taste as fresh as a ripened strawberry in your mouth, especially in an era of music where a 5-foot pot smoking Martian rules the charts. Sorry to any Weezy lovers out there… it’s just about time a band that throws modern-day conventions out the window gets their due.

“Chalk Train,” thriving on a rolling bass line from Joewaun Scott and infectious Corey guitar lick, drips with the blues. (“Lord knows I want to be free/Want to make my way down to New Orleans/Eat my share, pull my weight/Bribe Saint Peter at the heaven’s gate.”)

While not heavy on the story telling that defined some of Chicago’s early blues-gods, Soul Solution keeps listener’s ears at attention as Corey leads one down his whirlwind trail of lyrical content.

And as stated in the opening line of the album (“You know it’s all the same anyway; either way/I’ve got nothing to prove to you.”) about the only thing remotely cliché in Lubriphonic’s M.O. is that they are in the music biz for the love of their craft.

While record sales today are only keeping the largest music acts afloat, it’s a band’s largest compliment to jettison a fan off his couch and bring his or her ass out to a live performance. Because after all, that is where the money is still being made.

Lubriphonic, while giving listener’s a taste of their live chops with the last two tracks on Soul Solution, execute this task to perfection. The album’s songs, loaded with the appropriate space for improvisation, yet grounded enough in character to remain tight, seem to be a book left unfinished that can only be completed in concert.

Soul Solution effectively brings a heavy dose of the blues to a town that raised and cultivated the genre. Now it’s time for Chicago music fans to cultivate a following for the pool of sound that is Lubriphonic, so perhaps the Second City can rebirth a musical movement painfully lost in the modern era.

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