We’ve got two new soulful releases on tap for you this week–the latest from New York’s Budos Band and the legendary Temptations.

The Budos Band - The Budos Band II

On their sophomore effort, the Budos Band’s music rolls by like the score to the credits of a long-forgotten Blaxploitation flick. Hardened, Shaft-worthy, cinematic funk explodes forth from this Staten Island group, their music a well-sealed time capsule or the soundtrack to lost scenes of kung-fu bedlam. It’s the sort of music Quentin Tarantino dreams about at night, a music supervisor’s wet dream: original compositions that feel utterly familiar, command an exceptional vibrancy, and set things off with blasts of blustering bombast.

Apart from being great party music and making for excellent theme songs–what I wouldn’t give to have this stuff play right before I entered a room!–The Budos Band II shows off some range as well. There is the groove-happy scrambling of the perennial “My Girl,” rendered here in instrumental form as “His Girl,” as well as the dry desert sauntering of “Origin of Man.” The real draws, however, remain the all-out organ-drenched soul shots like “Chicago Falcon” and “Mas o Menos”–classic Isaac Hayes homages.

Purchase The Budos Band II on CD or as MP3 downloads from Amazon.com.

The Temptations - Back to Front

How many albums of new recordings would you wager the Temptations have recorded over a career that spans more than four decades? Fifteen? Twenty-five? Maybe thirty?

You certainly can’t fault the quintet for not being prolific; Back to Front, their latest studio outing, makes album number forty-eight for the legendary soul group. While their present reputation is tied more directly to PBS pledge drives and a bewilderingly ceaseless tour schedule than their hits from the 1960s and ’70s, there is no denying that the Temptations were as integral a part of the Motown phenomenon as any other act in the label’s menagerie, including Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, and Marvin Gaye. Back to Front finds the Temptations paying respect to the legacy they were such an inseparable part of, covering soul classics by Barry White and Sam and Dave alongside the work of more mainstream pop acts like the Doobie Brothers and Bee Gees to varying degrees of success.

Indeed, the very notion of recording cover versions of hit songs seems appropriate given that only one member of the original chart-topping lineup, Otis Williams, is present in the group’s current incarnation and that modern recording technology lends such a hygienic sheen to these takes. In this sense, Back to Front doesn’t feel like the Temptations as you are likely to think of them, backed by the warm tones and rough edges of the classic Motown era. That nostalgic air aside, there are few moments here where the production–slick as it is–leads the group astray. On their version of the Staple Singers’ “Respect Yourself,” the Temptations sound even better than the original. The rhythm is funky and hard-grooving, the harmonies tightly bound.

Without delving too deeply into the irony of covering “Hold On, I’m Comin’”–a tune known best for having been rendered by the Blues Brothers–it should suffice to say that the version here is a hoot, led by a bubbling undercurrent of baritone sax, gently wah-wahed guitars, and a nice breakdown with a half-minute to go. Even better is the opener, “Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up,” which would glide by most listeners’ ears unquestioned as the original, so good is the Barry White mimicry. It is a recording on par with the one that served as White’s calling card for so many years, undemanding and inviting.

After all these years, it is no surprise the Temptations understand their audience as well as they do, and they deliver a set of safe crowd pleasers their public will love and eagerly purchase. Back to Front is about as mainstream as soul records come. It isn’t a record for mod fetishist hipsters or old-school purists, but then again, after all these years it shouldn’t be.

Purchase Back to Front on CD from Amazon.com.

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