With vintage Soul music very much seeming 'en vogue' to the mainstream right now there have been a plethoria of copy cat acts as well as some extremely poor attempts to jump on the band wagon and cash in on the Soul sound.
Leon Bridges, the well dressed and slick 25 year old from Fort Worth, Texas steps up to the plate!
He's been honing his sound for the last year or so with a ruthless touring schedule across the States, as well as several jaunts over to this side of the pond. After months of tracking his steady rise he finely breaks out onto the scene with his finely polished new long player, "Coming Home" which was released today!
Unlike many acts his sound is not forced and feels very natural. It's easy to see why he has already been likened to Sam Cooke as his music could quite easily be mistaken for a misplaced or lost recording session from the Sixties Stax or Atlantic era.
The album is relatively short, running in at just 34 minutes but what you have here is 10 tracks that are all as equally strong as each other, all killer with no filler! Musically it's very comforting, never feeling too pretentious with the strength of his vocals continually leading the LP.
Bridges' traverses well across the Soul spectrum, touching Gospel notes with the beautifully haunting "River" as well as with more upbeat tracks like "Smooth Sailin" and "Twistin' & Groovin'" which lend a nod to the southern Blues sound. "Lisa Sawyer" gives us an intimate tribute to his Mother with a Doo-Wop tinged sultry saxophone backing.
The vintage analogue recording lends itself well to his style and the production is excellent from Austin Jenkins & Josh Block who were both instrumental in helping Leon Bridges develop his style.
This is real bare bones Soul music at its best and if this fantastic introduction to Leon Bridges is anything to go by I think his career will be one to definitely watch!
Grab a copy of "Coming Home" on Vinyl or CD HERE
Or get your E-dig on HERE
