One of America’s greatest rock bands is
back with their fifteenth album, their first original album in eleven years in
“Liberte”. The Doobie Brothers have been a band since the 1970’s with many
iterations of the group but always with their vocal harmonies and their
mainstream rock sound that has elements of folk, pop, country and R&B.
This album could be broken down into
parts like a record with an “A & B side” as lead singers Tom Johnston and
Patrick Simmons each take turns singing songs they wrote. Johnston wrote seven
and Simmons wrote five.
Johnston’s songs are 100% like a Rock N
Roll album where it could be mistaken for a classic rock album but an updated
version of it as his tracks really rock out with his great voice for rock
music. While Simmons’ tracks do rock out in some of them, certain times they
start off slow or very acoustically as they are more emotional. Some are about
love, some are self reflective and some are him reminiscing about the good
times he has had.
Tracks like “Just Can’t Do it Alone” and
“American Dream” remind me of old school tracks like “Listen to the Music” or
“China Grove”. The songs that really
rock out are “Shine Your Light” and “Don’t Mess with Me” to name a few that are
like the style of “Long Train Running’” or “Rockin’ Down the Highway”. Tracks
like “We Are More than Love” and “Easy” are multi layered but they also rock
out as I can see both being singles you can hear on the radio. Johnston ends
the album with a non-hard rock song-an emotional song about an old friend even
though it doesn’t rock out like the other tracks- it has great vocals on it.
This latest album from the Doobie
Brothers is unlike some of their classic rock brethren’s attempt at new music
as it is very listenable without a bad song on this album, as this is one of
their best albums in decades. You have all kinds of rock styles from casual,
classic, hard/edgy, acoustic, folk, country and pop. You can just pick which
style you’re in the mood for and be treated to the great vocals of Johnston and
Simmons. If you didn’t know this was a new album you could confuse this for an
older album/unreleased album as it is another fine addition to their large
discography of great music.
