With former lead singer
James "J.T." Taylor
rejoining his old band after a break of several years, hopes were high among
Kool & the Gang
fans that the reunited group could rejoin the ranks of hitmakers once again with
State of Affairs
. But the painful state of affairs revealed on this disappointing, sterile-sounding effort was that
the Gang
were trying too hard to show they could hang with the then-current batch of high-tech
R&B
chart-toppers. The supreme irony of clunky-sounding
funk
numbers like
"Crabs in a Barrel"
is that at the same time this album was released,
soul
revivalists like
D'Angelo
and
Maxwell
were making celebrated debuts with music that owed not a little to
's sweaty '70s grooves. But the group missed that development completely, using robotic programmed rhythms to ruin even appealing tunes, like the wistful
"In the Hood."
Meanwhile, even though the group's politics were never particularly prominent or sophisticated, offering "Life in the '90s/so good...so bad" as the message of one track hardly counts as commentary. Classy
ballads
like
"Second Thoughts"
"Reunited"
are about the only sign
Taylor
and his bandmates aren't ready for the junk heap; unfortunately, that's exactly where most of
belongs. ~ Dan LeRoy