Memphis soul gospel queen Elizabeth King recorded her first single in 1970, and if all had gone as planned, she would have made her first album a few years later. Instead, it took another half century, but Living In The Last Days, the latest sacred soul long player from Memphis's Bible and Tire imprint, captures King at the height of her powers, with the intervening decades only serving to stoke the flames of one of the most memorable voices in modern gospel music.

Living In The Last Days is a triumph from the very first intimate vocal notes of the arresting opening track, "No Ways Tired," to the similarly moving closer, "You've Got To Move," dual studies in intensity that each build to a burning climax, bookending a searing selection of songs burnished by the down-home grooves of the Sacred Soul Sound Section. Additionally, the Sensational Barnes Brothers are on board for harmony vocals as are King's old D-Vine Spirituals label mates the Vaughn Sisters and the D-Vine Spiritualettes.

King switches gears seamlessly between the moody, almost minor key swing of "Mighty Good God" to the horn-heavy Stax-style "Call On Him" to the roof-raising gospel rocker "Reach Out And Touch Me." In between, she reimagines a trio of her Designer sides ("Testify," "A Long Journey" and "Walk With Me") with D-Vine's trademark wah-wah guitar, lays down a tremelo-drenched treatment of the Shaw Singers' trance-like "He Touched Me" and demonstrates how hauntingly apropos the eternally timely lyrics of the title track are today. The entirely acappella "Blessed Be The Name Of The Lord" comes straight "from the book of Job," says King. "The verses came strictly from the Bible." She couldn't be happier with the way things turned out!