Ruf (label)
10 June 2014 (released)
10 June 2014
If you’ve been living under a rock for the last year or so you should know that RSB are Cyrille Neville on vocals, Devon Allman & Mike Zito on guitars, Yonrico Scott and Charlie Wooton drive the train and they have released one critically acclaimed album and a live CD/DVD that got more rave reviews than any other set of recent years.
There is an unwritten rule of ‘supergroups’ that after the initial joy of experimenting with each other on the first album the artistic egos start to show and the struggles to get maximum exposure start to show – often around the time of the second album if not before. Royal Southern Brotherhood don’t seem to have heard of this rule – they are still playing as a band and sound as though they are having the time of their life – what a blast!
Every track on the album drips class and pours out classic Blues and rock with some great slide guitar, great vocals and general joi de vivre all over.
With all three leads sharing the vocals on ‘World Blues’ you begin to see them working as a team with some fine slide from Mike and great harmonies but it pales beside track 2: even though the music sits in the classic genre it manages to make a track with as dumb a title as ‘Rock And Roll’ drag you out of your seat and has you boogying like a madman trying to air guitar, air drum and dance at the same time.
After that mad outing they slow it down with a brilliant ‘Groove On’ that slinks and catches you in a New Orleans/Muscle Shoals sex fest (they aren’t too god at titles!) with Cyrille sounding mean, moody and soooo much the groove master.
The sheer FUNK of ‘Here It Is’ is awesome – the bass line and the choppy drums, Cyrilles’s vocals spat out at you with the others on harmony – track of the year so far and the next track, 'Callous' is almost as hard hitting and fine!
This is one of the albums that could mark 2014 out as a landmark year. Every track is memorable and every track sets up a feeling and a set of emotions that should ensure that they are being played for years to come.
I tried, and failed, to find a negative. It stands as a true genre classic and leaves you just wanting to go back and do it all again and again.
