KOOL & THE GANG — Wild and Peaceful (review)

KOOL & THE GANG — Wild and Peaceful album cover Album · 1973 · Funk Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Sean Trane
Third album from this combo, W&P is definitely much more representative of K&tG’s musical realm, before the disco craze would deviate them from their course. Indeed, the present album is one of the more representative funk album of the 70’s (there are a quite a few killer-funk tracks on this collection), and unlike their debut album, the vocals are quite present and the mood is demented and de-complexed. Gone are the gentle almost 60’s soul-ish songs (well one exception with the atrociously cheesy, but cocky Heaven At Once), and incomes the funky beats, these guys were not ashamed of making their self-promotion as studs of the music scene.

While Funky Stuff and More FS are typical early 70’s funk, you can already feel that with Jungle Boogie and Hollywood Swinging, the future disco-ish style (like Chic, for ex) with more binary dancing beats. The brass section is much less present than previously and used mainly as such, but once it’s there it gives the band even more sharpness and power, like in the 100 MPH This Is You. Excellent guitar work on Life is What you Make It, BTW. In that regard, it’s rather surprising that the 9-mins title track is very different than the majority of the album’s funk: indeed the gentle jazz-rock/fusion developed allows for plenty of delicate time sigs and excellent soloing, including a delightful flute. Difficult to call that superb title track the album’s cornerstone or even its highlight, because it sticks out from the rest of the album and is completely unrepresentative of it, but it’s definitely this writer’s fave. With a superb artwork fronting W&P, this could be K&tG’s ideal entry point par excellence.

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