Tower Of Power, the third LP by the 11-man Oakland aggregation, earns high marks for both its up-tempo riff tunes and the ballads that have won the group acceptance on both Top 40 and soul stations. With 1972's quietly desperate "You're Still a Young Man" and last summer's heart-tugging "So Very Hard to Go," the Tower achieved radio "cross-over" success by establishing its identity through crisp,...

The funk burner bubbles constantly in the background, but it doesn't compensate for the lack of good material. Even the token ballad, "Time Will Tell," is inferior to "So Very Hard to Go" and "You're Still a Young Man" from the group's previous two albums. The repeated invocation, "Giddyup, giddyup, heigh ho," on "Don't Change Horses" is irritating, not exciting. For lack of a melody on the...