Royal Southern Brotherhood: Songs From The Road Review

The Royal Southern Brotherhood’s second album, Songs From The Road: Live In Germany, is a collection of enjoyable live performances from the Crossroads Festival in Bonn, Germany.  Featuring an all-star cast of Cyril Neville, Devon Allman, Mike Zito, Yonrico Scott, and Charlie Wooten, the Royal Southern Brotherhood captures the best elements of blues, rock, and roots music.

All in all, Songs From The Road is a solid album, featuring 11 impressive performances from this cast of veteran bluesmen.  From the opener, “Fired Up!” until the close of the record, “Gimme Shelter,” the record is full of rockers, plain, simple, and well played.  This album is not for the faint of heart, but is full of fantastic interplay, anchored by drummer Yonrico Scott and bassist Charlie Wooten.  Screaming guitars and gutsy vocals by Neville and Allman fill out the band.  While most of the album is full of rockers, “Left My Heart in Memphis” is a solid soul tune, and “Ways About You” is a nice minor key detour.

The only real downside to the album is the relative lack of variety.  Most of the tunes are similar, even though they are enjoyable.  Other than that, the album is full of well-written songs and good performances.  Because of the cast, the bar is set quite high for this album.  At the end of the day, the album doesn’t quite live up to expectations, but is a solid and enjoyable listen nonetheless.

The Review: 7.5/10

Can’t Miss Tracks

– Fired Up!
– Left My Heart in Memphis
– Ways About You
– Gimme Shelter

The Big Hit

– Left My Heart in Memphis

Review by Nik Rodewald

Buy the album: iTunes