"Their just-released second album Living by the Minute evokes the hard-boiled funk of James Brown, the Memphis howl of Otis Redding and Al Green, and the percolating parade beat of New Orleans, but with a lean, modern energy. Hoyer's lyrics, enlivened by the husky charcoal purr of his voice, also keep his songs in the present, especially in the title number, which brims with urban desperation, and "Over the City," which sounds like a lost outtake from Curtis Mayfield's timeless Super Fly."

THE NASHVILLE SCENE