Pastor Cedric B. West & the Electrifying Relatives

One Liner: Pretty solid gospel funk rock
Wikipedia Genre: Gospel, funk, and psychedelic rock (no Wikipedia)
Spotify Says Similar To: The Electric Peanut Butter Company and Willie Wright
Home: Dallas, Texas

Poster Position: 25
Slot: ?

Thoughts: Back in that gospel zone of the poster (as though the band name didn't tip you off).  Although the name doesn't quite match, I just found that this stuff is available on Spotify - just called The Relatives.  And some of these songs are actually hugely popular! Well, at least for the gospel people who usually play ACL, they have a song with more than 639,000 streams!  I mean, that is legit! From their 2009 anthology of tunes, here is "Don't Let Me Fall."

Their Spotify bio shows that they have opened for the Staples Singers.  That is pretty big time.  I usually come to these gospel reviews planning to make some sort of joke, do a quick review, and move on.  But these guys really look like the real deal.  Come on and check this next one out, called "It's Coming Up Again," which has 310k streams, and sounds as funky as James Brown bringing the damn thunder right up to your door right now.

Interesting thing, that song sounded really familiar, and it looks like it was featured on season 1 of Fargo, the show I literally just finished watching earlier this week.  Serendipity, man.  AND THAT SONG IS DOPE!  If you don't do some Bill Cosby-esque head shakes and groove around in your seat while listening to that track, then don't read anything ever again. Just go crawl into a coffin and go away already.

For my money, that 2013 album, The Electric Word, which was produced by a guy from Spoon, is the top pick for these cats.  They have a 2016 album called Goodbye World that is pretty good too, but not as funky to me.  Then, the 2009 Don't Let Me Fall anthology album is more gospel-centric and less exciting to me.  Surprisingly loving these guys though. That'll teach me to generalize the gospel bands!

Yes, I'd go see these guys funk it up.