When it comes to music to move a crowd, you can't beat an act with funk. Defunkt are a lively act who like to move around. Indeed, when Joseph Bowie and friends start to blend their walloping bass, perky percussion and bold, brash brass into edgy, fulsome workouts, anyone who does not feel like getting up and dancing would be advised to seek the comfort of the nearest exit.
The Defunkt formula is a fairly straight one. Bowie directs the musical traffic and blows a trombone storm to the starboard side of former Sun Ra cohort Alex Harding's roller-coaster sax.
At the rear, Kim Jackson keeps the basslines rolling as Gintas Janusonis and Kahil El Zabar mix and match the drums and percussion.
While the grooves which result from this mix are somewhat complex in tone and arrangement, the lyrics and hail from the user-friendly call-and-respond side of the fence. But, as the likes of Trouble Funk and even George Clinton have proved time and time again, you don't need prize-winning words to woo a crowd who have a fever.
Yet there was something staid and mechanical about Defunkt. Sure, they blow up a mean storm and blast away at a rate of knots, but there are clinical and soulless traces which no amount of shouting or high-octane playing can mask. Perhaps it's the workmanlike manner in which they ply their trade or the annoying flourishes of style over substance, but Defunkt's brand of music funk seems seemed disappointingly underweight. More meat, less gravy next time out.