It’s hard to believe that Stone Foundation have been making life better with their silky sound for over a quarter of a century. Through all the trails and tribulations the world has faced over the past 25 years (and let’s face it, there’s been a lot) this eight-headed hydra have released a succession of albums that counterbalance some of negative karma flying around. Album number eleven, the aptly-titled The Revival Of Survival, finds the band at their most optimistic (and joyful) delivering a record that acts as a soothing balm to ease our troubled times.

The album is bookended by two almost ambient tracks, the first of which is ‘How Many Times’, an opening gambit which welcomes you to the band’s world with warm brass and soulful vocals and it’s a sound that, like a rolling stone. takes on new form almost imperceptibly, and before you realise you are cocooned within the band’s summery sound. It’s an otherworldly kind of introduction that does nothing to prepare us for the following title-track. It is as if the band have jumped out from behind the sofa with party poppers and streamers, and with four on the floor deliver a groove laden track that sets the tone for the coming album. Certainly not made for somnambulists or narcoleptics, ‘The Revival Of Survival’ is a life-affirming affair that sends shock waves through the listener and alters our very physiology; its a sugar rush or caffeine buzz that’ll have all but the firm and frail strutting their stuff. As such, The Revival Of Survival should really be prescribed on the NHS and would do more for people’s ills than pharmaceuticals ever could.

The Revival Of Survival is an album that operates at varying speeds and tempos, yet it has been furnished with a warm, lustrous production which ensures that it flows smoothly from one track to another like a luxuriant river of silk. ‘Cut Me Loose’ (featuring the first of several guest appearances) is a karate fighter throwing all sorts of neat moves whilst the following ‘Close To Where You Are’ is a penny dropped in golden syrup before ‘Fix You Up’ puts goes wild on the dance floor for an irresistibly groovy affair. Despite operating as an octet (plus various guests), Stone Foundation are a surprisingly lithe beast and shape shift over the course of eleven cuts like some strange alien life force. It’s the second of those two “ambient” cuts that closes the album, this time in the shape of ‘Summer Song’. Featuring a guest spot from Omar, it’s a track that brings the album nicely full circle and demands you hit ‘play’ again as soon as it fades into the ether.

Having successfully navigated the past 25 years, The Revival Of Survival suggest the next 25 will be just as intriguing!

• The Revival Of Survival is released via 100% Records on 28th March 2025.
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Track List:

1. How Many Times
2. The Revival Of Survival
3. Everything & All I Want
4. Cut Me Loose (featuring J.P. Bimeni)
5. Close To Where You Are
6. Fix You Up
7. The Beat I Know (featuring Sheree DuBous & Carmy Love)
8. 2 Die 4 U
9. When Worlds Collide
10. Reach Out (featuring Laville)
11. Summer Song (featuring Omar)