The band's lineup is unchanged since '98, when he plucked Mother Superior to support him. Featuring Jim Wilson on guitar and organ, Marcus Blake on bass, and Jason Mackenroth on drums and sax, overall Nice is similar to Get Some Go Again. It finds Rollins and crew tighter than ever, still mining the '70s rock and metal fields for sounds and inspiration, yet managing to come across fresh while rocking harder than ever. Though a cut like "Let That Devil Out" has Rollins musing like a cross between a jazz scat singer and a beat poet over a walking bass, soon all hell breaks loose, with Wilson cutting guitar riffs like a young Jimmy Page in his prime.

"Up For It" is a wickedly fun cut, utilizing female backup singers (in his self-penned press release, Rollins states that this was his manager's idea). Along with the organ, this mix provides a large and open sound. He also notes on the release, in his own self-deprecating way, that "At least some of the vocals on this record are on key."

"Hello" is vintage Rollins, a savage song that begins with him screaming (as he is wont to do at times) the word "hello" ferociously enough to drop a brick house on a trio of pigs. And though he admits to his vocal limitations, Rollins harnesses anger and intensity quite well, thank you. Whereas other metal or hardcore frontmen often scream for the sake of screaming, with Rollins you get the sense of the emotion behind the words. And that is one of the qualities which has set him apart from the pack over the years. Nice is indeed his finest release to date. The band is sharper than ever, the guitar sounds are smoking (and Rollins gives credit to his road manager Mike Curtis for doing the legwork and hunting out the various amps, pedals, and the like). The rhythm section is locked down tighter than Fort Knox, and simply put, the disc kicks ass. For those out there looking for integrity in heavy music (something hard to find nowadays), the iron man of rock has once again come to the rescue.

On a personal note, my son was still in the womb when he first heard the Rollins band on a PBS special, and my wife reported that he kicked frenetically while the band was on. Now at 15 months, when Nice hit the CD player, he immediately began dancing, bouncing on his knees and clapping his hands. Raise 'em right, I say. And thanks Henry.

Apart from tall tales of the past, the disc is not as funky as its title suggests. Holding it in my hands, I imagined relief along the lines of P-Funk or Bootsy Collins, since good funk is hard to come by lately. The result is more like getting methadone when you were expecting heroin – it's good enough, but you're still jonesing for Clinton or Collins.

On the funkier numbers, Jay Kay belts it out approaching the best of funk. "Main Vein," for example, starts out like Rose Royce's "Car Wash" (a classic that should be in your collection regardless of your tastes), with the wacka-wacka rhythm guitar, string keyboard sound, and that familiar disco beat on the hi-hat and snare. "Feels So Good" has a nice walking bass while the guitar rings out octaves, with a P-Funk-like synthesizer running lines during the chorus. The single off the disc, "Little L," combines so many elements of the mid to late '70s funk disco sound that you could swear you heard it way back when.

Not all is funky though. "Corner of the Earth" and "Picture of My Life" both have a sixties acoustic jazz feel to them, almost sounding like "The Girl From Ipanema," while "Black Crow" is similarly a low-key number, something more for when the candles get low than dance-floor histrionics.

Overall, it's nice to hear funk again, what with all the hip hop and hardcore glutting the airwaves. Though you may notice more of a European disco feel than American funk, there's enough here to satisfy your funk addiction, if you've got one. And given that funk is always better experienced live, should Jamioquai come to a neighborhood near you, it'd be a good idea to get out there and see how it translates to the stage. I've got my fingers crossed.

Though it may not be a prolific approach to songwriting, there is no doubt about the results. In part dark and scary metal, veering ever so slightly toward hardcore, the band smacks you with all the anger of a Chicago cop at a '60s democratic convention. The music is heavy, the guitars liquid, the vocals eerily bathed in reverb, scathing, and shouting. Yet VOD makes good use of dynamics, creating tension in songs by swelling the sound or bringing it down to a whisper. Unlike other bands that feel a need to run everything at 11 from start to finish, VOD provokes interest sonically by painting the canvas with various colors. Though you won't find the cheery little pop song, most are dark, yet engaging nevertheless.

The opener, "Living to Die," begins with a funky riff that soon gives way to a heavy, crunching sound, populated by tom tom beating, and the vocals sounding distant with delay. By the chorus, a mix of grunge and metal bellows out at you, a heavy, powerful sound, that is full and not muddy. The second cut, "Southbound" blares out, a creepy, head-banging number that again mixes grunge with metal, a kind of Nirvana meets Alice in Chains. For sheer fun and variety, check out "Downtime Misery," a crazy mix of a tune if there ever were one. Though dark and ominous, VOD manages not to sound like a rip off of other bands. They forego the current standards of going full blast for the whole disk, or putting random snippets culled from movies or television shows at the beginning of each song. Ultimately, From Bliss to Devastation cranks from start to finish. One can only hope that they won't have to lock themselves away for another two years to produce a follow up.