Put on Roll With You, the new album from Boston-based soul band Eli "Paperboy" Reed and The True Loves, and chances are you'll immediately feel the urge to either dance or cry. "That first response to a record is the most important," says frontman Eli Reed. "If a record comes on and makes you want to dance right away, then you’re doing a good job. If a record comes on and makes you want to cry right away, you’re also doing a good job. I think this album does both."

Indeed Roll With You is a vital, gospel-tinged mix of sweaty, up-tempo numbers and aching, lovelorn ballads - all originals - that connect instantly thanks to the passion of this young performer and his equally young band. The True Loves may employ classic soul stylings -such as anguished vocals and a raucous horn section - but they make the music their own by performing it with the youthful abandon that only a group of seven talented guys in their '20s can muster. The fact that it's soul music, and not, say, punk rock is merely incidental. "I think my songs take of a lot of different influences into account," Reed says. "I just don't see that there's that much of a difference between us and any other rock band out there, except that our songs are better."