Pickin' Up the Pieces

"The six-piece band features a keyboardist, a sax/flute player, a bassist, a drummer, and two vocalists: Noelle Scaggs, a gospel/R&B singer who has worked with Dilated Peoples (and The Black Eyed Peas, which we won't hold against her) backs up the man known only as Fitz, who sounds like Neil Diamond but looks like the barista who made your coffee this morning. That's right, an undercover soul man. Even if Fitz and company were to fall through a wormhole while performing and land in 1967, they wouldn't be greeted as great innovators. Their sound is traditional genre to the point of being unabashedly cliché more often than not. Yet you can't dispute the album's consistency, on any plane of space-time. There are no duds to be found out of ten on Pickin' Up the Pieces . . . To answer the question inherently presented by anything retro, this band's debut represents a true revival, rather than an exhumation; Without heart, you're just a zombie, and Fitz & The Tantrums are not lacking anything in that category. In fact, many of the compositions on Pickin' Up the Pieces are so perfect and full of conviction that it's hard not to call them classics without exaggeration. To say that the swaggering, funky street corner sermon 'Rich Girls' one-ups the likes of Mark Ronson and Wino and Duffy is not saying enough, and to say that the flawless, heartstring-plucking album-closer 'Tighter' gives Elton John a run for his money might not even be saying too much." - Anti Quiet