Pianist-vocalist Graves is the first member of ‘The West Coast Get Down’, the collective whence came Kamasi Washington, to make a solo album in the slipstream of the latter's all-conquering The Epic. He therefore has much to live up to in the eyes and ears of those wanting more of the same. Yet Graves is very much a composer in his own right and his decision to make this debut a set of originals rather than pepper it with covers is a switched-on move. For the most part he unveils an appealing melodic sensibility. Tempos are up amid a prevalence of stirring Spanish-Moorish themes and brooding classical harmonies, the combination of which decisively raises the emotional pitch of the music. While Graves is an able soloist it is his left-hand figures, at times heavily staccato and block chorded so as to imbue the low register with real presence, that are striking, and the brawn, the ‘thickness’ this gives the music on the more overtly dance-oriented pieces such as ‘El Diablo’ is impressive. However, a few of the arrangements do not have the necessary light and shade to justify their extended duration, a problem that is compounded by a lack of flourish in some of the horn scores, where Washington's reed is often buried under the layers of brass. Having said that there is a notable cohesion in the ensemble that carries the music through the passages that could have been edited, and the pounding hypno-backbeat of ‘The Lucifer Rebellion’ ensures that Graves and co sign off with some soul.