Christ, is this the party album of the year or what? Why the hell am I asking you? See, I've been listening to the Delta 72's 000, and dancing around my apartment like a drunk Baptist preacher for the last hour or so. After stepping on my cat's tail, bumping into the vacuum cleaner, and knocking over the dog food bowl, I'm ready to stop, get on my knees amongst the spilled Eukanuba bits, and testify, brotha.

Having been bred a hellfire-and-brimstone Baptist for the first 12 years of my life (then, naturally, embracing atheism and anarchy by age 13), the Delta 72-- goddamn them-- went and got me all spiritual again. On 000, you get some Stax/Volt soul, a little Mitch Ryder, neo-Gospel grooves, and some Stones, topped off with a '70s Detroit glam onslaught giving it all a swift kick in the behind. Shit, what else do you want? Hell, they've probably got some of that, too.

Much like the Stooges and MC5, the Delta 72 use the wah-wah as a weapon, spiked with some pre-amp boost. It creates that wildcat roar of a "Wahhhh!" instead of the lame hippie shit that's usually coaxed out of those temperamental gadgets. And of course, the band is human enough to know that subtlety, heavy lyrics, and complex messages won't set many asses in motion. They're too busy bringing on larger-than-life R&B; beats, sweating, and churning out the musical life-essentials that make consciousness preferable to unconsciousness. These are songs that pose the kinds of questions that are really pertinent to our lives, like "Are you ready?," "How do ya feel?," and "Do you feel this?" For the Delta 72, the key to personal happiness is pretty simple: "If ya wanna get up, get up!/ If you wanna say yeah, say yeah!" Shit, who can argue with that logic?

Right from the beginning, it's clear this isn't just another band of white chumps making lame attempts to act and sound soulful (a la the Blues Explosion). 000 not only picks up where 1997's bad-ass The Soul of a New Machine left off, it explores sonic territory their previous albums couldn't quite reach. The new record fades in with the ass-shaking rave-up, "Are You Ready?," setting the tone with two burning white-hot chords that mesh with listing wah-guitar swells. The sound lands somewhere between the Stooges' "TV Eye" and Otis Redding's "Tenderness." Other tracks feature frontman Gregg Foreman's nasty slide guitar wailing straight from the nearest swamp, while some songs stress the layered Hammond organ sounds of Booker T. Jones via keyboardist Sarah Stolfo.

Like so many great albums, 000 is a relatively short, but aggressive and heavily concentrated burst of truly inspired music with no gratuitous filler. It clocks in at a mere 35 minutes, a perfect length that, if anything, leaves you wanting more instead of less. It's about as close as our lousy generation gets to an artifact anywhere even close to the granddaddy of all R&B; achievements, James Brown's Live at the Apollo. And though this may not be a live album, it's damn sure alive, friend. Don't be seduced by overrated namby-pamby indie bands made by a bunch of sarcastic mama's boys and emotionally-blank humanoids that loathe existence. Listen to that negativity long enough, and you'll end up hanging by your own belt in a Motel 6 shower stall. You have a choice, fellow sinners! Heal, heal thyself! Choose the Delta 72's 000, and choose glorious life!

-Michael Sandlin