Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Looking back can play havoc on the mind, the peace and solitude ruined by reflection and deliberate thought on where you might have gone wrong. The angst of knowing that whilst you were right the pain it may have caused others gnawing at your breast and all the while the chasing of the tick that followed tock a constant reminder that the new beginning you have carved out for yourself is one that easily could become the same boggy rut.
Royal Southern Brotherhood have taken that advice and come out charging with a new craving to deliver songs in their own indomitable style in their brand new album Don’t Look Back. Fronted as ever by the king of Gumbo and the voice that gives many reasons to thank the Gods that you didn’t turn right instead of left as you followed life’s instruction book, the superb Cyril Neville, and with Yonrico Scott and Charlie Wooton the backbone of the band remains within striking distance of the mighty delta and the sunshine of the southern boundaries of the vast countryside.
To lose such talented men as Mike Zito and Devon Allman might have seen other bands suffer tremendously and even crack under the loss, their successors in the group play like the demons they have replaced. For Bart Walker and Tyrone Vaughn, Don’t Look Back is merely a by-word to shove off the past with exuberant zeal and stake a place in the fraternity on their own recommendations and skill in their performance.
Looking back may offer a sense of accomplishment, the journey taken seen with pride and growth, for this newly fitted together quintet have a new path to tread; it looks the same as the one undertaken for the debut album. It has the same beautiful appeal with tracks such as Reach My Goal, The Big Greasy, the excellent and heart-melting Better Half, Bayou Baby and They Don’t Make ‘Em Like You No More screaming out for idyllic attention. The overall journey through the path is now strewn with a different kind of underlying structure, a cause in which Royal Southern Brotherhood have come out fighting to protect; it is a cause that is noble and clean.
Don’t Look Back; why would you when the way ahead is clear and with a new, more adaptable view to take in.
Ian D. Hall