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PRESS
Video Premiere - Breaks from the Border: The Studio
"Shortly after Hidden Track launched, our site?s founder Slade Sohmer posted an article about the killer Leeds-based funk band The New Mastersounds and we?ve been covering the four-piece?s comings and goings ever since"
Live Music Blog Album Release Show Review
Tahoe Daily Tribune Review
"From the very first note, the funk band plays hard, and the audience dances hard."
SYFFAL Show Review
"Let me start by saying this, if you've only listened to The New Mastersounds' albums then you are missing how truly amazing these guys are."
Denver Post Review
"The New Mastersounds kicked off the night, bringing a fun mix of dirty vintage funk. The four-piece British outfit is as modern as they come in their chops but pay an obvious homage to the raw sound and driving beats of New Orleans legends like the Meters"
Bone in the Fan Review
"Well the Leeds-based band has a new album coming out August 9 and are currently touring the US (I?m betting that catching their show is well worth the dosh and any travel time involved, and assuming I haven?t fled Florida by 2012 I?ll catch their FTL shows)."
South Gate House Review
"What can be described as a four piece funk juggernaut, the boys from across the pond know how to deliver a memorable evening of shake-your-ass music!"
Jam Cruise 9 - Jambase Review
"NMS do it clean and sharp. There?s nothing flabby about their approach to instrumental funk ?n? soul, and it inspires others to keep it neat and tight, too. While Robert Walter, Roosevelt Collier from The Lee Boys, Jennifer Hartswick, Mike Dillon and Zach Deputy played with hordes of others on this trip, they turned in some of their most concise, pointed playing with the Mastersounds at this set. But that?s just gravy for the core playing of this quartet, particularly the lightning fast guitar of Eddie Roberts (who also beats a tambourine with the possessed verve of a Baptist choir member) and the luxurious, feel-first bass work of Pete Shand, who proved my personal favorite of all the very gifted bassists on JC 9. The guy just crawls inside the musculature of a groove and lives there. So bloody satisfying!"
Jambase - 50 Unsung Classics of the 2000s
"Most contemporary studio funk and soul albums can't hold a candle to the pillars of the '60s and '70s. There's something missing, some essential rawness or more simply, not enough attention to the details or enough chops to make things sting. With Plug & Play U.K. lions The New Mastersounds staked their claim as one of the finest purveyors of hip shaking goodness since, well, James Brown and Grant Green were new faces on the scene. It isn't work to be swept away by the wah-wah addled seduction of "Thermal Bad" or the organ splash of "Altitude," but even better, they never let things fall into a same-y pocket, varying their funkin' with smart, flexible songwriting and playing touched by a churchly fervor. Cherry female vocalist Dionne Charles ladles abundant soul into her four cuts, but even when there's not a singer the Mastersounds maintain interest with their crisp, dexterous playing and snaky, purely enjoyable tunes. In a time where far too many people think bunk like Black Eyed Peas and John Legend is soul music, The New Mastersounds are around to keep things honest and true." - Dennis Cook
Jambands.com - Ten Years On
"With Ten Years On The New Mastersounds, Britain?s best-kept-secret in funk, mark their first decade together with a dozen red hot tunes to keep you plenty warm this winter, no matter where you live. Rarely does a band come along with so fitting a name as these four Brits, and they?ve got more chops than a karate tournament. The roots of their sound draws from the greatest '60s and '70s funk, soul and beyond, rounded out with a confident new school coolness and originality of vision that you just can?t fake." Read the full review here.
Relix Magazine - Ten Years On Review
"From the opening speed jam "San Frantico" to the closing toe-tapper "Make Me Proud," British funk exports The New Mastersounds shine on Ten Years On. Grace Potter sits in on a nice reworking of her bluesy "Nothing But the Water" (shades of "Cold Blood") and Skerik adds horns on "Ooom." While guitarist Eddie Roberts deftly shifts between chicken-scratch funk and Wes Montgomery flourishes ("The Road to Fuji"), Joe Tatton alternates from sparkly Rhodes to soul-drenched organ ("Make Me Proud"), never missing a beat. The group even pulls off the dance-themed "Cielo and Ooom." The New Mastersounds are a revelation. - Steve Bloom"
Hole in the Bag 5 star Review
"...Hole in the Bag is a fat nugget of organs, wah-wah and clattering drums if ever there was one, and sees the band do their best Meters impression to date. So much is this the case in fact, that should Cyril Neville and co. ever hear it they'll be swearing on their mum's lives that this is a long lost cut off 1969 classic The Meters and doubtless wondering how it ever got missed off the final mix as they scratch greying afros."
(Monkeyboxing.com)
Jambase Review
"Like Fred Wesley & The New JB's, Bobby Byrd, Marva Whitney or Maceo & The Macks in their day, the Mastersounds know groove and furrow it out like hogs on truffles."
Fuji Rock Review
"It's easy to see why the Japanese crowd love them. Apart from their fabulous music and almost embarrassingly good taste, they are stylish, clean cut, highly professional and coolly retro. They're also an amiable and approachable bunch. Almost the perfect band, really. During every song, each turnaround and transition is greeted with hysterical whoops of appreciation."
Squeals of Delight
"NMS is uber-tight and as loose as good luck. Their phenomenal rhythm section (drummer Simon Allen, bassist Pete Shand) parks itself in the pocket with enormous spaces between notes into which the better dancers groove-lock. NMS arrangements are more like conspiracies, with lots of wiggle room and numerous well-timed back-to-the-Ones (that moment of familiar return) designed to produce squeals of delight. There is much to be said for spending two evenings indulging in whatever causes squeals of delight."
(Favio Snimp - Jackson Hole Underground)
BBC Radio 2
"Here's a marriage made in heaven: The New Mastersounds with Dionne Charles. (Mark Lamarr - BBC Radio Two)"
Craig Charles Funk & Soul Show
"There is a good reason why these guys are the daddies of the UK scene and it is all in this album. Soul, Afro-funk, New Orleans-Funk and one blinding piece of Soul-Jazz. Plug & Play is simply a non-stop party"
Rhapsody.com
"The New Mastersounds are an organ-heavy group from Northern England who are in love with old American boogaloo records of all stripes (jazz, soul, funk and whatever else gets you on the dancefloor). Beloved for their energetic live shows, the New Mastersounds are joined here (about half the time) by Dionne Charles, a ferocious R&B belter who triumphs on tunes like "All We Can Do" and "Looking For An Answer." While it may initially seem like the band's appeal is limited to mod-suited soul nostalgia, jam rockers, crate diggers and night clubbers will definitely dig the New Mastersounds. (Nick Dedina, Rhapsody.com)"
C.H.U.D. Atlanta Show Review
"What's amazing is how these four guys can fill a room with the tightest and most intricately delicious music with what superficially seems like nothing fancy. There's no smoke and mirrors with these boys. They're normal looking chaps with guitarist Eddie Roberts playing a big-bodied Gibson, keyboardist Joe Tatton sitting at one organ using a very limited amount of sounds, bassist Pete Shand grooving away in the background, and drummer Simon Allen doing his thing tight as anyone's business but without theatrics."
JELLY JAZZ
"A simple review: listen to the samples, marvel at the sounds within, buy the record... 10 out of 10"
BEST KEPT SECRET
"A fanciful, debonair & dashing array of remixes - like having an open air martini with James Bond on Brighton beach" - Nick Matthews
BBC
"The NMS are easily the best of the recent crop of bands for whom samplers are moribund, but valve amps provide the meaning of life."
JAMBASE
"While many would be content to crank out discs full of mere retrofunk, The New Mastersounds are not interested in re-creating the past; rather they are taking vintage sounds and attitudes and merging them with modern ideas. The result is an addictive blend that has one foot in the past, one foot in the present, and both eyes on the future."
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