The Now Time Delegation was born from the ashes of the criminally obscure King Sound Quartet, and is the brain child of legendary Austin punk Tim Kerr, best known for his work with the Big Boys, Monkeywrench and Lord High Fixers, just to name a few. Joining him are Alex Cuervo, formerly of Blacktop, Kari Luna, Steve Adkins and Matt Verta Ray of Speedball Baby.

And then there’s Lisa. Lisa Kekaula has been getting a lot of attention recently, mostly as the lead singer of The BellRays. She has been consistently compared to the greatest female soul, R&B and gospel vocalists of all times. And rightly so: she is the Tina Turner of our generation.

For an ensemble cast on a debut album, the band members sound surprisingly comfortable with one another. The instrumentation is completely true to the early '60s soul sound (nothing places you in 1964 quite like a Hammond organ), yet it is infused with a noisier, more electric, element.

There is one completely inspired and brilliant track on Watch for Today -- "Hangin’ Tree", written by Tim Kerr, sounds like it could be a plantation gospel handed down through the ages. And then there’s the breathtaking interpretation of Curtis Mayfield’s "Keep On Pushin’". In fact, six of the twelve tracks on the album are covers, and each exploits Lisa’s vocal talents to their full potential.

The remaining tracks, all original Kerr compositions (with help from Cuervo), are solid, though not earth-shattering. It’s hard to go toe-to-toe with Curtis Mayfield, Eddie Floyd and The Quik and come out on top. But I give them all the credit in the world for even trying. The Now Time Delegation has produced a more than top-notch soul album in the tradition of classic Stax and Decca -- one which is even more delightful in light of the fact that there just aren’t many folks doing this stuff any more.

When I first heard about this record, I could hardly contain myself. I expected it would be an earth-moving disk; the proverbial 11 on a scale of one to ten. But once I finally got to listen to it, I had to acknowledge that, well, it’s really only a 9.5. Despite all its brilliance, rock and soul, I’m nagged by the thought that Now Time could do even better...so I’ll take the lyrics of the album-closer to heart and "look to tomorrow while I watch for today".