Southern Brotherhood
Album: Magic Carpet Ride
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.southernbrotherhoodmusic.com

Bournemouth based duo Southern Brotherhood are brothers in musical spirit, if not actually flesh and blood. Having come together as a duo as recently as February of twenty twelve, this pairing started off playing covers together to make sure the spark they felt when they played together had time to be fanned into a real fire.

Playing a combination of rock, folk and blues a-la the likes of Matthews Southern Comfort, John Martyn and The Band, etc. the duo gradually started introducing more of their own material into the mix, gaining the attention of local radio along the way.

Boyed by the reaction to their music, Southern Brotherhood soon found themselves in the studio recording their debut cut, "Magic Carpet Ride". It has to be said, and I'll say it up front as a caveat, that there is a bit of roughness that permeates the album and maybe more money spent on less tracks might have been a better way to go.

I appreciate that this has been recorded studio live with no overdubs and have definitely heard a lot worse recorded this way, but there is also a part of me that says there are times when you might want to polish the edges a touch here and there.

That said. it would definitely be a double edged sword, because "Magic Carpet Ride" really does feel like a twelve track album and having played it a good number of times times I couldn't suggest which songs to drop.

Southern Brotherhood wear their influences on their sleeve and that's probably why they feel very much more like an album band, with rich songs throughout, but not one that you would suggest would make a single. The songs have a grand sense of melody to them and at times no shortness of melancholy and with none of the bands namechecked making albums any more this is an album that easily that fills the gap on the cd shelf.

Neil King