Here’s an oddity. It’s not the blues as we strictly understand them, and unlike the rest of the BBB series, this isn’t a compilation of an artist’s out-of-print tunes. This is something better: the return of the mighty Persuasions, for 30 years the world’s finest a cappella group. An all-new album, that is, after the death of original baritone Toubu Rhoad, and a metaphorically and literally glorious return to form.

This is the group’s first all-gospel album, and its first with new baritone B.J. Jones, but not a drop of their classic harmony has been lost over the years. “The Storm Is Passing” by itself is the textbook sound of four voices melting into one, as Jerry Lawson ascends into a honest, transporting joy clinical groups like Take 6 never achieve. Fully 11 of the disc’s dozen songs are so dusty as to be in the public domain, and often-covered songs like “Deck Of Cards” are Old Testaments indeed, but before you think that gospel music, even black gospel done by streetcorner masters, is an ancient and untranslatable thing, listen to the dark opener, “Cain’s Blood,” a perfectly realized exploration of the duality of man that sounds as sadly relevant as any hip-hop player’s lament. And if you’re actually looking to go to church, head straight for the pearly gates of “Walk To Jerusalem,” which sounds as authentic as African tribal music and as real as the word of God Himself. In the avowed tradition of the Swan Silvertones and the Dixie Hummingbirds, the Persuasions’ Sunday Morning Soul will bring you into the light. And you don’t have to believe in anything but great music to enjoy it.