If you ask Frank Lenz what his music sounds like he'll tell you "It sounds like 'S.W.A.T.' on dope." It sounds better than that. The arrangements of the songs on this CD are right out of the best 1970s smooth sounds recordings, true, but on a closer listen the modern, post-club sounds, samples, and loops you'd expect from a Mole or Quango Records compilation provide the necessary amount of cool, of indescribable "ahhhhh". The technical aspects of the CD are a mature, perfect mix of 70s and now sensibilities. I mean now as in tonight-at-3am-after-the-club now. While so many attempts at the retro style sound like they were recorded on retro equipment (hint: not nice on the ears), Lenz's recording & production qualities are in the best tradition of Steely Dan's AJA but with newer recording gear. If you're looking for the cheesy colored cellophane of seventies music, look somewhere else.

One last comment about the retro, or vintage, elements of the CD: the record company packaged the CD in a vintage style with absolutely no irony or tongue-in-cheek hipsterwinking joking. The liner notes belong on the back of an album cover from the days when liner notes were a form of literature. Well, ok, maybe not a form of literature, but pretty close dammits!! It's well-done, OK? Trust me.

Perhaps it is because as a listener I gravitate toward late-night smooth sounds, in-the-car-at-4am stuff that transports me somewhere else than the freeways of SoCal that I like the songs on The Hot Stuff. On Take The Wheel, this feeling isn't more evident as the bass keeps rolling under the vocals insisting that 'Jesus take the Wheel and Drive'...the song is a trance, someone else's hypnosis on which we're invited to eavesdrop. The opening and title track The Hot Stuff sets the mood for the whole CD, a monster badass funk groove that sets the speed limit to 'ticket' right away. Later on, you can slow down a bit, but keep moving because Lenz doesn't encourage the brakes.

Soul Sound Revival, the midpoint track of the CD, is an apt name for the music Lenz creates. Perhaps more than any other track, the blend of seventies archetypes (flute choruses) and modern production skills are perfectly executed. You music geeks out there will appreciate this. For the rest of normal society, the end effect is a seamless blend of sounds that, well, sounds good. No better way to put it, it sounds good.

The Hot Stuff sounds good. And really, in the end, what else do you need to know from a music review?

Frank Lenz - The Hot Stuff, Northern Records LLC www.northernrecords.com