There Is Only Now is the best Souls Of Mischief album since the classic 93 Til' Infinity. Even though Montezuma's Revenge was solid, this record blows it out of the water. Adrian Younge's instrumental work is extremely well done. There is no sampling - the "beats" are all live instrumentation. Sonically, it sounds like something that could be from a seventies movie, though the biggest influence here is clearly the work of David Axelrod. Younge's arrangements have lots of tastefully played bass, strings, keys, and flutes.
There Is Only Now is a concept album that centers around a simple story: a crew member gets kidnapped and they have to rescue him. The album is best listened to as a whole because the sequencing is top-notch. Every single member of Souls of Mischief is very skilled lyrically and the group still has strong chemistry. It's beyond satisfying to hear a group that started out in the nineties put out such a great late-career album. 93 Til' Infinity indeed.
