Love to the World

For all their associations with ’70s jazz fusion, the Mizell Brothers could work much of their same melodic groove mastery with straight-up R&B artists — it’s just that they didn’t always have as many opportunities to do so. Maybe that’s how this album helped elevate Greensboro, North Carolina funk band L.T.D. into future hitmakers: it feels like a collective something-to-prove effort by the Mizells’ production/songwriting braintrust and a fierce funk-soul band on the verge of both getting dropped by their label and making something great. The pop #20/R&B #1 “Love Ballad” definitely bore out as much in a commercial sense, but it’s a hell of a performance, too — as is the funky-unity harmonic thunderclap of the title cut, the gutbucket disco of “The Word” and the throttle-wide-open joy of “Time for Pleasure.”