I have seen more music coming across my desk than ever. They seem to fall from trees like apples. But after listening to Nick Moss’s album, I realized he has an apple I can feast on all day and through the night. His newest album, Time Ain’t Free, is phenomenal. The Nick Moss Band is a fined tuned, well-oiled piece of material flaunting many shades of music. If you are a lover of rhythm & blues, soul, rock, and jazz wrapped into the groove, Time Ain’t Free is the album for you.
The band opens with a slow rock tune, “She Wants It.” It’s a good opener allowing the band to show their talents, but providing a vehicle for the coming tracks to be sublime. I particularly like the vocal and keyboard arrangements in “She Wants It.” They are exceptional.
“Time Ain’t Free,” the title track, is my favorite. The percussion in the piece is amazing as the pattern and tempo offers pure jazz flavors. Finishing the piece, is a superb guitar solo, most likely from Nick. He plays his axe well. “Tell You Somethin’ Bout Yourself” is another jazz track that mixes rhythm & blues and soul. The keyboard/organ has a Booker T sound that is awesome. I love the tight spot-on arrangements in this track as with all the tracks. It sounds as if Nick and the band could play these tracks in their sleep. Maybe they do.
The last track, “(Big Mike’s) Sweet Potato Pie” is an instrumental piece that plays like an encore. There is a great finish to this number as the guitar drifts into a solo finishing the piece, “Sweet.”
Other tracks I would like to comment on, but the bottom line is Time Ain’t Free is one of the best albums I’ve heard in a long time. There are many things happening in all the tracks simultaneously. The rhythm and chord progressions are superb throughout the album as Nick offers something different with each track. As Nick said, “I think authentic music, real music, is about experimenting.” I think the experiment worked with Time Ain’t Free. I’m JR Miller with High Note Reviews, and this is The Nick Moss Band with no “Time Ain’t Free.”