Liberte-The Doobie Brothers Album Review:

 

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.