It's been twenty-five years since George Clinton asked us to give up the funk. But the fact that even Mr. Funkadelic himself couldn't track down the funk these days is testament to the funk's elusive nature. Indeed, trying to track down the funk can be not only difficult, but dangerous as well; it's been known to lead to a variety of maladies, including bad hair and cocaine addiction. Take Rick James: a prime example of what happens when an unprepared individual attempts to tame the funk.

So, it's a good thing the Eternals haven't tried to track down the funk. If they did, the funk may be lost forever, depriving future generations of hours of mindless ass-shaking. On their self-titled debut LP, these guys manage to pull out the kind of syrupy, deep grooves that could trap anything, even the wily funk, like quicksand.

Furthermore, I'm not sure if the funk could make it past the Eternals without being severely warped and mangled. Catchy and keen as the funk may be, it is fairly predictable, relying on a few tried and true (in some cases, trite and true) rhythmic techniques, most of which involve bass and drums, or heavily wah'd guitars. So, instead of repackaging the old style, the Eternals created some of the thickest, deepest, and most beautifully fucked-up grooves imaginable as their new funk prototype.

Insane keyboards and samplers grind like dentist drills under the powerful baritone tremolo and fractured sing-speaking of frontman Damon Locks. But given the nature of his voice, and the similarly dramatic and concise bent of his lyrics, it's often hard to say whether or not his delivery is intended to be taken so seriously.

The real beauty of this record is the way the Eternals seamlessly combine so many diverse elements into such a stylistically unique mix. Traces of dub, rock, jazz, reggae, and, yes, the funk, are all present, but thankfully lack the cartoonish exaggerations implemented by other recent bands as a way to garner acclaim. Instead of accomplishing this with a few samples, distorted guitars, a horn section, and a twinge of wah, the Eternals combine the melodic and rhythmic sensibilities of these genres to create a perfectly integrated sound, and then flavor it with their own warped sense of song structure.

If there's any criticism that can be levied against the Eternals, it's the fact that, while their music is definitely diverse, the songs on this album tend not to stray far from mid-tempo. But when a band has come so close to perfecting a given style, would it really be all that advantageous for them to try something radically different? Never forget what happened to Sunny Day Real Estate when they tried to become Rush.

Yes, a lot has happened to the funk in the past 25 years, as evidenced by the fact that the closest thing to a funk band you'll see on MTV these days is the Red Hot Chili Peppers. A sharp contrast to the Eternals, who eschew the trappings of traditional funk to create the rich, organic grooves the genre could only have dreamed of achieving in 1975.

-Matt LeMay